Babysitting duty
by Blahsblah2001
Summary: The shikon no tama is needed to fix the well, and get everyone back home. But if it's used to kill Naraku, then where will that leave our heroes? Finally DONE!
1. Friday Night

Okay, I've written this about three tiems now and my works program has ceased ot work, and my frustration is quickly overwhelming my desire to entertain, so pardon me if this looks a little rushed at first, K?  
Disclaimer: It is not possiblefor me to own any characters or story lines or whaever because I don't even understand the original manga.  
ROTE is a fictional band, as far as I know,and I don't hold any rights to that either.

"But, Dad-"  
"No buts. You're staying home to watch your brother and that's final."  
15- year old Sesshoumaru glared at the floor, which wasn't very effective, but it beat glaring at his dad.  
"Okay."  
"That's a good boy."  
His Dad patted his head.  
"Dad! Quit doing that! I hate it when you do that."  
"I can't help it, it's so fuzzy." He patted it again.  
All the guys in the family had long white hair, even Inuyasha, who was only six. But Sesshoumaru decided it made him look like a girl, and had gone one day after school and had it all cut off, much to his father's horror.  
Sesshoumaru stalked out of the kitchen, leaving his parents to exchange looks. Inuyasha was playing in the living room, directly in the line of fire. Not that he cared.  
"Sesshy, look what I made!" he cried, holding out a boat made of legos.  
"One, I don't care, and two, don't call me that."  
He walked into his room and slammed the door. Ten seconds later the sounds of a guitaur being tuned up came through, a familiar sound. Inuyasha loked from the door to the kitchen,and bak. Then he dropped his boat on the lego-strewn carpet and walked to the kitchen.  
"Mommy? Why's Sesshy mad at me?"  
"He's not mad, sweetie," his mom said, picking him up. "He's just grumpy becasue he can't go out on Friday."  
"Oh. I'm glad he's not mad at me."

Thursday at school, Sesshoumaru sat at his accustomed table. Nobody ever sat there except Sessoumaru and Jaken, and that suited the two of them just fine.  
"I can't beleive I'm stuck in for another friday night. Geez, if I wanted to be tied down I'd have had my own kid."  
"That's exactly what we need," Jaken said sarcasticly. "A bunch of you running around. Right."  
"Oh, shut up. Better me than you, twerp."  
Jaken was the exact opposite of Sesshoumaru, he was short, twiggy, and a loser by nature.  
"Watch what you're saying to me," Jaken said, reaching into his backpack. A second later he withdrew three tickets.  
"Those arn't-"  
"They are. Three second-to-front tickets to the ROTE concert on Friday, and you're grounded. Guess I'll just have to find some hot girls to go with me."  
"Hot girls? You? Man, it's gonna take a lot more than ticket to get a girl to go out with you."  
"Wanna bet? I bet I can get Rin to go with me."  
"You're on."  
Jaken took one of the tickets and sauntered over to the table where Rin was sitting with her friends. He said something Sesshoumaru couldn't hear, and then the whole table burst into laughter. Jaken scurried back to his own table, the ticket still in his hand. Sesshoumaru laughed.  
"Way to go, you stud you. You'll have every girl in school at this rate."  
"Oh, shut up, Sess. I'd like to see you do better."  
"Fine. I will. Watch me."  
Sesshoumaru picket up the ticket and walked over to the table, mostly expecting the popular girls to laugh him off before he even got there. To his surprise, they didn't.  
"Hey, Rin."  
"Hey. Sesshoumaru, right?"  
"Yeah."  
The other girls at the table giggled, not meanly. Rin looked shy.  
"Uh... Rin... You ever listen to ROTE?"  
"Yeah. Sometimes."  
"Cuz, y'no, I've got this ticket and nobody to go with and.. uh..."  
"Will I go with you?"  
".. yeah."  
"Of course."  
Sesshoumaru looked at her and tried to figure out if she was pulling his chain. She wasn't.  
"Well, okay. See you Saturday."  
Sesshoumaru turned, and walked back to his own table where an awestruck Jaken was waiting for him. Rin turned back to her friends.  
"Way to go, Rin."  
"He's so cute."  
"I can't beleive he asked you to that concert."  
"I can't beleive JAKEN asked you."  
"Like he had a chance."  
The girls giggled.

Over at the other table.  
"Congratulations, Jaken, you've got a girl to go with you."  
"Correction: I've got a girl to go with YOU."  
"I can't go. I'm grounded."  
"Why don't you just leave him? Little brat'll be fine for a couple of hours."  
"Nah, I can't. He'd tell my parents and they'd ground me for about forever."  
"Too bad, man. Too bad."  
But Sesshoumaru was thinking. There had to be a way to get to that concert. There had to be.

"Remember, there's frozen dinners in the freezer and if you want to you can get a pay-per-veiw movie. We'll be back before morning."  
"Be in bed by midnight."  
"Yes, Dad, yes, Mom, we'll be fine," Sesshoumaru said. "You've been telling me the same stuff since I was Inu's age. I know."  
"Can we get a movie, Sesshy? Can we? Please?"  
"Fine, fine, whatever," Sesshoumaru said, watching his dad and stepmom pull out of the driveway. When they were safely gone, he picked up the phone.  
"Yo. Jaken, you there? Listen, you still got that last ticket? Good. I'll meet you at the stadium. Don't even ask, man, don't even ask."  
He hung up the phone, and looked at his little brother.  
"Hey, Inu, can you keep a secret?"  
"Mom says secrets arn't nice."  
"Yeah, but we're gonna do somehting really really fun, and we don't want Dad and your mom to be sad they missed it, so it has to be a secret, okay?"  
Inuyasha thought for a second.  
"I guess that's okay. What're we gonna do?"  
"We're gonna go see some music get played. And there's gonna be a lot of people, so..have you got anything really bright you can wear? Just so I can keep track of you?"  
"Uh-huh. I've got my Halloween costume. I was a ninja."  
"Halloween costume? Oh great."  
But Inuyasha was already gone. Sesshoumaru went into his room and got the stuff he had bought for the concert. Carefully he put red spikes across his cheeks, and a blue moon on his forhead. On his arms he put more of the red stripes. Then he put on a loose white shirt and pants, a with a yellow and blue belt tied in the front. As a last touch he put some bright red eyeliner on. He felt kinda stupid wearing makeup, but it did look pretty cool.  
And that's when Inuyasha emerged triumphant from his room. He was wearing all red, and a fake sword, and...  
"Do you really need the ears?"  
"I like the ears. Lemme wear the ears, Sesshy."  
"You look dumb in those," Sesshoumaru said, lifting Inuyasha up by the back of his shirt. "Ditch the ears."  
"Put me down!" Inuyasha pulled out the plastic sword and started hitting Sesshoumaru with it. "I'll take your stupid arm off!"  
"Yeah right. On second thought, maybe we oughta leave that here to."  
"NO! Lemme bring it or I'm not going!"  
"Fine, fine, whatever. At least let me put some color on your hair, you look like a retard."  
"Okay, fine."  
Sesshoumaru got the jars of temporary hair dye. Within a few minutes Inu's white hair had become a medley of blue, yellow, and purple.  
"Ready to go?"  
"Ready!"  
Sesshoumaru put on his shoes, (Inuyasha steadfastedly refused to wear any.) And tied up his pants so they wouldn't get caught in the spokes of his bike.  
"All right, let's go."

To be continued. Tell me if you guys want more of this, K?


	2. Why won't this come off?

  
I'm gonna write some more just because my house is empty and I have little else to do.  
To Kitsune Ryune: I'm not sure what kind of concert. Probably something like Beck. (Odelay!) As for the youkai... you'll have to wait and see. It is an AU fic though.  
This is in America, too, just because I'm a culture retard.  
Disclaimer: I continue to own nothing.

Sesshoumaru had to pedal slowly to keep his pants from falling into the gears of his bike. It didn't help that Inuyasha was sitting on the back of the seat.  
"Faster Sesshy! I can run faster than this!"  
"Oh yeah, why don't you show me, Brat?"  
"Don't call me Brat! Mom says you're not allowed to call me brat!"  
"Well, don't call me Sesshy."  
"Go faaaaster! Sess sho-mru!"  
The stadium was only a block away. Actually, it wasn't an actual stadium, just a stage and a fenced-off area. Sesshoumaru could see Jaken and Rin waiting near the gate. Jaken was saying something to Rin, and she was listening intently. Jaken had most of his face covered in green face paint, and Rin was wearing a yellow and orange shirt with a matching skirt. Her hair was pulled into a pigtail on one side and left down on the other. She had a big fluffy boa wrapped around her waist.  
Sesshoumaru pulled the brake handles hard, spraying gravel as he pulled up next to them.  
"You brought the brat?" Jaken said incredulously.  
"Oooh! He's so cute! I love your ears," Rin said, tweaking them.  
"Hey, lemme go! I'm a ninja!"  
"You look more like a youkai with that hair," Jaken said.  
"This is your brother?"  
"Half-brother."  
"Yeah, well he can't come in," Jaken said. Sesshoumaru glared at him.  
"Why not?"  
"One, he'll get killed. Somebody will step on him."  
"Nobody'll step on me!"  
"Quiet, twerp."  
"And two, there's four of us and only three tickets."  
"No problem," Rin said. "Well just take him over the fence. Little kids can run wherever they want, people just assume their parents are inside already."  
"We can do that. there's a whole open section of fence by the parking lot, nobody's watching."  
"This sounds like I'm being bad, Sesshy."  
"No, it's not, don't worry about it."  
"Yeah, big brother Sesshy wouldn't tell you to do anything wrong, would he?" Jaken said, laughing. Rin giggled.  
"Shut up, Jaken."  
"Aw, what's wrong Sesshy?"  
"DON'T CALL ME SESSHY!"  
Jaken and Rin took their tickets and went in. A few minutes later they met Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha by the fence.  
"I can't get him over this, guys," Sesshoumaru said, looking at the formidable fence. "There's barbed wire up there and everything. If he falls he'll kill himself, and my parents will kill me."  
"I can get through this." Inuyasha said, pulling out the plastic sword.  
"How? You gonna cut right through it? Yeah, ri-"  
Sesshoumaru stared at Inuyasha, who was now on the other side of the fence.  
"How the hell did you do that?"  
"Youkai secret."  
"You're not a youkai! You just look like on cuz of your ears. Now tell me how you got over this fence."  
"Not telling."  
"Fine, I'm going around. Meet you guys right here?"  
"Yeah."

Five minutes later they met up again, this time all on the same side of the fence.  
All right! See, Sesshoumaru, I told you this wouldn't be so bad."  
"Yeah, I guess. Inuyasha, stay close to me, okay? Place is full of weirdos..."  
"Yeah, like we look totally normal ourselves," Rin said, looking at the stage where the band was getting ready to do their first song. "Hey Sesshy, wanna dance?"  
".. uh, sure. Jaken, watch Inu, k?"  
Jaken's reply was lost in the sound of the mikes squealing. A few seconds later, the whole stadium was full of the sound of music. Sesshoumaru danced with Rin, actually losing her a few times when strangers pushed between them. Finally they went to the edge to sit down for a minute.  
"Hey, I'm gonna go get some drinks. You want anything?"  
"Sure."  
Rin wandered off into the crown in the vague direction of the concessions. Sesshoumaru looked around for Jaken or Inuyasha, but didn't see them anywhere. It worried him slightly. Finally he found the place where he had left them, and they weren't there. He poked the shoulder of someone dancing nearby.  
"Hey, you seen a little kid around here anywhere? Dressed totally in red?"  
The guy thought for a second. Sesshoumaru saw that he had blue spikes going down his cheeks.  
"Nope. Sorry. Hey, you wanna dance?"  
"Aren't you a guy?"  
"Yeah, so?"  
"... no thanks."  
Sesshoumaru moved back into the crowd, looking everywhere for Inuyasha.  
"Darnit, he's gotta be around here somewhere-"  
That's when Rin shrieked. Sesshoumaru turned around, then did a full 360 as he followed her gaze... to the lights above the stage. More accurately, the little red- clad figure climbing over them.  
"No way... I thought that only happened in movies."  
Someone tapped his shoulder. It was the guy with the blue spikes.  
"Hey, I think I found that kid," he said, pointing up at the lights.  
"Yeah, no shit."  
He saw Jaken standing by the bottom of the supports, staring up at the little kid. He ran over, and whacked him over the head.  
"Stupid! I said watch him for ten minutes! He's gonna freaking kill himself! How the hell did you let him get up there?"  
"It's not my fault! He ran off, I just spotted him a second ago! And you guys were gone for like two hours!"  
Sesshoumaru stared at his half-brother, who was now nearing the center of the structure.  
"INUYASHA! GOT THE HELL DOWN HERE!" He screamed. "Will that thing even hold him?"  
"Shit, Sesshoumaru," Rin said, appearing next to him. 'That's not gonna hold."  
Inuyasha turned to look back at his half-brother, and waved. Several things happened at once. The light fixtures swerved to look at a different part of the stage, the supports buckled, and Inuyasha fell. He grabbed onto the support with one hand, but wouldn't let go of his sword with the other.  
"SESSHY!"  
Sesshoumaru ran toward the middle of the stage, pushing the crowd out of the way. Somehow none of them had noticed anything.  
"How can they not see?" Sesshoumaru thought. Everything was coming in a bit foggily. "My brother's about to die, how is the world going on?"  
Inuyasha was holding on by four fingers. Three. Two.  
He fell.  
Sesshoumaru jumped.  
Even as he jumped he realized he couldn't actually be doing what he was doing. This was a hallucination brought on by guilt. There's no way to save him, Sesshoumaru thought, as he grabbed his half-brother out of the air. This isn't happening. Inuyasha was still screaming. He screamed as Sesshoumaru fell twenty feet to the ground, landing on his feet. He screamed as the boy straightened up, staring at the child in his arms as if he'd never seen one before. He screamed as Rin and Jaken made their way out of the crowd and stood next to their friend. And then he stopped.  
He looked at the ground. He looked at Sesshoumaru.  
"Youkai secret," he said.  
"We gotta get out of here," Jaken said, but Sesshoumaru was already moving. The four of them threaded their way through the crowd, who were to busy trying to figure out who feel and who saved him that they forgot to look around them. When he figured he was far enough away from the people, Sesshoumaru stopped.  
"What …. The hell…. Just happened?" Jaken panted.  
"Ask the kid, he seems to know," Rin told him. "Inuyasha, is that the same thing that let you get through the fence?"  
"Nope," said Inuyasha sleepily. He put his head on Sesshoumaru's shoulder. "Somethin diffrn't. I'm sleepy, Sesshy, can we go home?"  
"Not till you spill. What's going on?"  
"It's Daddy. He's youkai so you're youkai, and me too. Please, Sesshy, it's cold, I want to go home."  
"It's not cold."  
"Take this," Rin said, untying the boa and wrapping it around Sesshoumaru's shoulder. Inuyasha buried his face in the fluff.  
"Mmm… smells good."  
"What are you talking about? It doesn't smell like anything."  
But it did. It smelled like strawberries, and … Rin.  
What the hell?  
"Inuyasha, talk to me, this is really important. Remember when you found that mouse in the toilet? This is more important than that."  
Inuyasha giggled.  
"That was fun."  
"Yeah it was craploads of fun, but right now I need you to tell me why the hell I can jump fifty feet in the air."  
"Cuz of Daddy."  
"Great. We're getting nothing out of him, he still thinks he's a youkai. Way to go Rin."  
"Hey, how was I supposed to know?"  
"When did it get to be morning?" Jaken asked, looking at his watch. "It's one in the morning, this is the latest I've ever been out."  
"Shit! I gotta get home! Oh, shit, I hope my parents aren't home yet."  
"You said a bad word, Sesshy."  
"Byeguysseeyoumonday!"  
Sesshoumaru ran off to find his bike, leaving Rin and Jaken to stare questioningly at each other.  
"Concert's not over," Jaken said.  
"Wanna dance?"  
"Yes."

"I wanna go to sleep, Sesshy."  
"You can, but first I've gotta get this stuff out of your hair, okay? If Mom sees it she'll go into conniptions."  
"What's a con -nip- shin?"  
"Remember what Mom did when you took the mouse from the toilet to the kitchen?"  
"Yes."  
"That's a conniption."  
"Oh. That's bad."  
"Got that right."  
Sesshoumaru put his bike in the garage, quietly saying a prayer of thanks that his parents weren't home yet. He turned on the warm water in the bathroom, and got Inuyasha's pajamas out of his room.  
"Okay, we're gonna wash this stuff out real quick and then you can go to sleep."  
Of course, life is never that simple. Given the choice between playing in the water and going to bed… Inuyasha chose water.  
"Look, Sesshy! I'm a sub!"  
He stuck his head under the water, turning the pristine liquid a dull brown color. Sesshoumaru poured shampoo into the water, figuring Inuyasha would take care of the rest on his own. He did.  
"Quit splashing so much! This water'll probably stain the walls… CUT IT OUT!"  
"Wheeeee! I'm a SUBMARINE!"  
Sesshoumaru dumped a bucket of the water over Inuyasha's hair.  
"Oh, you dope. You forgot to take off these ears."  
They didn't come off.  
"What the hell…?"  
"You're saying a lot of bad words today Sesshy."  
Sesshoumaru pushed Inuyasha's white hair out of the way, trying to find the blue plastic band that held the ears on. It was nowhere to be found. The kid's human ears were gone, too.  
"Hee, lemmy ears go, Sesshy, that tickles."  
"Okay. I'm not even going to ask."  
The he saw the red stripes on his arms and remembered the makeup on his face. He get a washcloth off the rack and tried to wipe the blue moon off. It didn't come off. It didn't even dull. Panicking, he tried the stripes. They didn't lighten either.  
He closely examined the red stripes on his arm. They didn't look like paint. They looked like they were part of his skin.  
"Okay, Inu, time to get out. Our only hope is to pretend we've been home all night. I have to get you into bed."  
"I don't wanna go to bed."  
"Well that's just too bad," Sesshoumaru said, pulling the plug. He got the blow dryer out and prepared for an ordeal. To make along story short, he got one. After another half an hour, he had Inuyasha tucked (tied, more like) into bed, with promises not to say a word to their parents about what they had done.  
He dropped into his own bed, prepared for a long night of sleeplessness. However, when his parents came quietly in the door five minutes later, he was already asleep.

This chapter is dedicated to Invader Iza, for being the second person to review!  
If you want a chappie dedicated to you… You know what to do.  



	3. Tessaiga, the supersword!

  
I know there's a process to this, and the shorter I make chapters the more often I get to update and the more reviews I get, however, I'm too damn impatient for my own good. This would explain the reason I've updated three times in two days.  
Anyway, you read these for the stories not the A/Ns so here we go.  
(Disclaimer: The amount of nothing that I own would be funny if it weren't so appalling)

Saturday morning Sesshoumaru was awakened in the usual way: His little half-brother taking a flying leap onto his bed.  
"BANZAIIIII!"  
"Aaaagh! Get off me, Brat!"  
Sesshoumaru picked up the kid and proceeded to give him a noogie.  
"Ah! Geddoff me! MOOOOM!"  
"HE STARTED IT!"  
"I DID NOT! You meanie!"  
That's when Sesshoumaru saw the red marks on his arms and remembered all that had happened the night before. He would just have to take Inu out and avoid his parents until he figured out what was going on. Or until this stuff washed off, whichever came first.  
No problem.  
"Oh, good, you're up," his mother yelled from the kitchen. "See if you can get your brother to take those ears off. He won't let me near them!"  
Sesshoumaru looked warily at the ears which, the night before, has been cheap plastic knock-offs. Now, they had replaced his real ears. They were covered in short white fur, twitching slightly… and kinda cute. He took advantage of the choke hold he had on his half- brother to poke one of them, and was rewarded with another shriek. Sesshoumaru noted with some interest that Inuyasha was growing fangs. He ran his tongue over his own teeth to find that he was doing the same.  
Well that's new.  
"Okay, Inuyasha, time to go."  
Using the system he had perfected in the years since the screen on his room had been busted, Sesshoumaru opened his window, stared hard at the tree branches outside it, and then jumped out the window, falling three feet to the ground.  
"Inuyasha, come on."  
"I'm just gonna go tell mommy we're leaving, K?" Inuyasha said, leaning out the door.  
"No! I mean, uh, we're playing ninjas okay? We have to be quiet. Shh."  
"Shh," Inuyasha echoed. He was wearing the red kimono again, complete with the sword. Sesshoumaru noted with a bit of annoyance that he had fallen asleep in his clothes.  
At least I left the boa on the bed, he thought as Inuyasha grabbed the boa and climbed out the window with it.  
"Leave that here, Inu. I feel dumb enough going around in this."  
"I like it. It smells nice."  
Sesshoumaru had to admit he had a point there. The boa smelled like Rin.  
As he located that smell, he started finding others as well. The grass, the tree next to his window, his little brother, even he had his own scent.  
He looked around. The colors around his seemed a bit duller. But the shapes were sharper.  
"What's a-c-t-u-a-l-l-y spell?"  
"Actually. Why, where'd you see it?"  
"Over there." Inuyasha pointed to their front door, where a newspaper was sitting. Sesshoumaru realized he could make out what it said.  
"I'm just gonna mark this down as Another Weird Thing and keep moving. Inuyasha, want to go to the fort?"  
"Yeah!"  
The fort was an old hunting shed in the woods behind their house. It had once been used to hide hunters from their prey, but the boys had fixed it up one summer, and now hung out there often. Usually Jaken and Sesshoumaru put up a strict 'no one under ten allowed ever' rule, so it was a treat when Inuyasha got to come in.

"There's somebody here already, Sesshy."  
"I know."  
He did. He could hear someone moving inside and smell something slightly but not entirely unlike feet.  
"You stay here."  
Sesshoumaru slowly walked up to the door. The place was giving him the willies. It smelled of gunpowder and blood. The smell was so strong he couldn't believe he'd never picked it up until now. He knocked on the wooden door.  
"Jaken? That you?"  
"Go away, man. Leave me alone."  
"What's wrong with you? Look, Inuyasha and I've got serious problems and nowhere else to go, so open the door."  
"No."  
"I'll break the door down."  
He could do it, too. He felt reasonably assured of that.  
"Shut up, you will not."  
"Fine. I won't. But look, I've got to get inside somewhere and I can't go home. You know all that stupid makeup? Jaken, I can't get it to come off!"  
"Yours neither?"  
The door swung open.  
"Jesus christ"  
"Jaken, you're really short today," Inuyasha said, appearing on Sesshoumaru's shoulder. He would have laughed if Inuyasha wasn't right. His friend leveled out at about two feet tall. His skin was the same green he had painted it the night before, but like Sesshoumaru's makeup, it no longer looked like paint but instead was the color of his skin.  
"Not just on my face, either. It's all over my body. I haven't even been home, my mom would freak out and my Dad would probably RAID me."  
Inuyasha laughed.  
"Shut up, twerp."  
"What about Rin? Is she okay? Did this happen to everyone who went? Maybe there was some kind of… toxicy…thing or something."  
"Sesshy-"  
"Quiet. You're only here so Mom doesn't see you. You don't get to talk."  
"But Sesshy, Rin isn't-"  
"Look, we don't want to hear about how you're a magic youkai, okay? I look like a toad, Sesshoumaru looks like a faggot, and we're in imminent danger of staying this way forever."  
"I've got dog ears."  
"Good for you."  
"No, he's serious. Those things are melded with his head."  
"Sesshoumaru… you're so lucky, man."  
"WHAT?"  
"Two things attract chicks, kids, and cute dogs. You've got two in one here."  
"You're a freaking riot, Jaken."  
"Who's kidding?"  
"FOCUS!"  
Sesshoumaru would have knocked him over the head but he felt a bit stupid hitting someone a third of his height.  
"There's gotta be some reason for all of this happening. I feel like.. I dunno, Spiderman or something. I woke up this morning being able to tell the difference between my scent and my brothers. I can read newsprint from fifteen feet away. Last time I jumped I hit fifty feet in the air, and I feel like I can rip a phone book in half. "  
"I can do this!" Inuyasha said, jumping to the ground in front of Jaken. He wiggled the ears back and forth. Jaken had to look up to see them.  
"Great! You guys are the Superboys and I'm just short. And green."  
"Really? That sucks."  
"You're telling me," Jaken said sarcastically.  
"So back to the original question."  
"Rin's fine. I think. After you guys left we went back into the stadium and danced for a while. At three AM the place shut down, I guess the health department showed up or something, anyway, I walked Rin home and that's when I started dropping inches. She was fine, as of three thirty when I left her house." He looked up at Sesshoumaru. "Does my head look rounder to you? I think it's getting rounder. I can't decide whether or not I wish there was a mirror in here…"  
"You look fine, " Sesshoumaru lied. Actually, Jaken's head did look round, except where he looked like he was developing a beak.  
"Liar. He does not," Inuyasha said.  
"That wasn't the original question, you know."  
"Oh? What was?"  
"How we got… like this. What's happening."  
"Who knows?"  
"I do."  
"Let me guess. We're magic youkai, right?"  
"You guys are. Not me. Mom says I'm only a hanyou, but she said not to tell anybody."  
"Hanyou… that means…"  
"Half- youkai."  
"Oh yeah."  
"So let me get this straight. According to… who? Your mom? Dad's a youkai, which would make your mom a human."  
"I believe that part," Jaken piped up.  
"Shut up, Jaken. So that would mean my mom was a youkai, too, right?"  
"I dunno. But she said you were a youkai, and dad was a youkai, and I was a hanyou."  
"And that means what to me?" Jaken asked.  
"But that doesn't explain why all this stuff came out of nowhere last night. And it doesn't explain why this damn makeup won't come off."  
"And it doesn't mean anything to ME!"  
"Shut up, Jaken. We'll deal with you later, seeing as we have no leads at all."  
"Hey Sesshy, look what I can do!"  
Inuyasha, who'd been messing with his sword this whole time, now pushed it into the sheath, and then pulled it out again rather dramatically.  
"Aww, man, it's not working!"  
"Will you quit messing with that?" Jaken grouched. "Gimme it, I'll show you how to make it fly."  
He reached for the sword, then jumped back, holding his hand.  
"Oww! It shocked me!"  
"Don't be stupid. It's just static electricity."  
"Oh yeah? You touch it!"  
"Inuyasha, could I see that for a second?"  
"No! It's mine."  
"I'll give it right back."  
Sesshoumaru grabbed the sword's handle, pulling it out of the sheath.  
It's not shocking me. It's not. It's not. It's NOT.  
"Dude… you're on fire."  
Sesshoumaru dropped the sword and stared at his hand. It was alight with blue flames. Sesshoumaru dimly wondered why it didn't hurt more than it did.  
"See! I told you not to touch it!"  
"It's my sword, Sesshy. Don't touch it."  
"Fine by me, Brat. Where'd you even get that sword, anyway?"  
"Dad gave it to me. The week before Halloween. That was the time he fell off that ladder and knocked his tooth out, remember?"  
"I didn't know your dad was missing-"  
"Shh! I smell somebody."  
"Wasn't me."  
"Oh, shut up. Never mind, it's just Rin."  
"She's not even here, man."  
"Here you guys are!"  
Sesshoumaru stuck his head out the door. Rin was standing a few yards away, making her way toward the old building.  
"Sesshy, your mom's looking for you. She said you might be here. Have you been out here all night? Is Jaken here?"  
"Jaken's here. He might not let you in though."  
"Like hell I will!"  
"See?" Sesshoumaru walked outside, following Inuyasha, she bolted out the door at the mention of Rin's name.  
"Hi Rin! Are you coming to play too?"  
"Sure! These little ears of yours just keep getting cuter."  
"Look what I can do!"  
Inuyasha twitched them back and forth.  
"They're real? That's so AWESOME!"  
Rin picked Inuyasha up and hugged him. Sesshoumaru looked back at Jaken, who gave him an I Told You So look.  
"Hey, Rin, I've still got this boa thing of yours," he said, holding it out to her.  
"Nah, you keep it. It looks good on you." Sesshoumaru blushed, hiding it in the boa.  
"Didn't you get that makeup off? It looks good for a concert, but you don't wanna be going around like that all day."  
"It won't come off," Inuyasha said. "Sesshoumaru can't get his makeup off and Jaken's turned into a troll and I'm super dog!"  
When Rin was done laughing and Jaken was done threatening Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru was done making sure the stripe on his left arm was REALLY on there well, Inuyasha had figured out how to work his little sword trick again.  
"Look at this! Look what I can do!" he yelled. Again, he pulled the sword dramatically out of the sheath, but this time it was different. This time the sword shot off yellow sparks. When it was all the way out, Rin gasped.  
"How can you even lift that?"  
The sword was almost Inuyasha's full height, and made of metal.  
'That's really sweet." Sesshoumaru said.  
"Well well. It looks like you've finally found the secret to the tessaiga."

Who is speaking? YOU DON'T KNOW!  
Hahahahaaaaa.  
It seems that the balance of power has shifted in my favor.  
(Look at the sparkly purple button! PRESS IT!)  



	4. Inu no Taisho

"Well well. It looks like you've finally found the secret to the Tessaiga."

Everyone whirled around to look a the speaker, who was stepping out of the forest.

"Dad?"

"Your mother's looking for you," Inu no taisho said simply.

"What are you doing out here? How did you find this place, you've never been here."

"You're not the only two with good noses."

"Oh, great, you're superman, too?" Jaken whined from inside the shack. "This really bites."

"Jaken, will you get out of there?" Rin asked, trying to open the door, which Jaken had latched shut.

"Like hell!"

"How did you know about, you know, this?"

Sesshoumaru ignored his friends and focused on talking to his Dad.

"Your scent's changed for one. And when your mother told me-"

"She's not my mother."

"Quiet. When she told me about Inuyasha's ears I just put two and two together."

"Two and four hundred sixty five more like. Were you expecting this or something?"

"Well, sort of. You see-"

"Couldn't you have warned me! Look at this stuff! It's stuck on my face! If I had known I'd be stuck with it forever I would have painted something less…"

"Gay?" Jaken volunteered from inside the shack.

"… yeah."

"Well, if you'll let me talk for a minute without being interrupted, I'll explain a bit of this to you."

"A bit? How bout more than a bit."

"How bout you be quiet? Yes? Thank you. Okay, the reason this is happenign to you two is-"

"We're youkai!" Inuyasha said, swinging the sword around blindly.

"Look, do you want me to tell you or-" their father stopped. "Wait. How do you know that?"

"Mommy told me!"

"Izayoi…" he shook his head, smiling slightly. "Well, she wasn't supposed to, but I'm glad at least you can keep a secret."

"You mean he's not making it up?" Rin gasped. "That's so weird!"

"Uh… who're you?"

"I'm Rin. Nice to meet you, Mr. Sesshy's Dad." She extended her hand. He shook it a bit warily.

"Right. You're human, how'd you get wrapped up in this? I know I've never seen you before."

"I went to the concert with Sesshy and Jaken and Inuyasha yesterday." Rin ignored the slice-across-the-throat gesture Sesshoumaru was making. "I've never met them before that, so I wouldn't have met you, now would I?"

"Quit calling me Sesshy!" Sesshoumaru said, too loudly. "It's bad enough when-"

"Wait, a minute, you took your brother to a concert? Without telling me?"

"Uh… that is… I kinda…."

"Well, that was a waste."

"Huh? Why?"

"Do you know how hard I had to work to make sure you two were both stuck at home?"

"… huh?" Sesshoumaru, Rin, and Jaken asked in unison. Inuyasha had gotten bored with his sword and was chasing a grasshopper.

"Okay, back to the beginning. Last night, if you noticed, was a full moon. Nothing different there, except that this is the hundred thousandth full moon. Which wouldn't be a big deal for anyone who wasn't a youkai. See, every hundredth full moon, whatever youkai have been born since the last lose their human bodies and become youkai, or, in the case of your brother, hanyou. Got me so far?"

"I think so. So what about the stripes and the ears? Why won't they come off?"

"Every youkai has some defining mark on their body, normally on their faces, which identify them as youkai. These are genetic, there's nothing you can do about them. I'm not sure exactly why you and your brother picked according marks, but I'm sure there's a reason."

"How do you know it's genetic?"

"Because my mother had red stripes of that exact color, and I think her father had a moon like that. That was back in the sengoku jidai, so I don't remember him well."

"Really? The feudal era? Sweet!" Rin looked at Inu no taisho, her eyes sparkling. "You guys are pretty much immortal, then, right?"

"Heh. No. Once we hit our first hundredth moon, we age a lot slower, but we do age. And we can, of course, be killed. Though Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha and I have little to worry for about that. There are very few dai youkai left. A few lesser demons, but they're mostly in hiding."

"There's other demons? Like who? Do you know any?" Rin looked like she was about to bubble over with questions.

"There's only half a handful. I could rattle them off for you, but… let's see… you're probably too young to remember George Bush Sr. so no, you wouldn't know any of them."

"And you didn't see fit to tell us about this Great Change… why?"

"Great Change? Heh, son, you'll see the Great Change soon enough."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Well, for one, I wasn't sure it would happen. The ancient majicks are going a bit haywire lately, but mostly because you wouldn't believe me and I didn't feel like proving it when I could just wait."

"I guess that makes sense…"

"So what's your mark, Mr. Sesshy's Dad?"

"I don't show mine most of the time."

"You don't have to show it? How do you do that?"

"Lots of practice. You'll learn, kiddo. Right now you're too used to being human. Wait on it."

"Great. Waiting. Exactly his strong point," Jaken said from inside the shack. "Any idea as to where I got MY marks from?"

"I dunno Jaken, your mom's pretty ugly," Sesshoumaru joked.

"SHUT UP!"

"Come out here and make me!"

"Like hell!"

"You don't have to come out," Sesshoumaru said. "I think I hear someone coming."

Right now I've missed not only Inuyasha but Fullmetal Alchemist, and there's a new chapter of HanyouEXE waiting and I've got 20 out of 60 more avatars to upload onto my website. I have pushed all these things aside in order to write for you.

Review, please? (puppy eyes)


	5. Jaken's Mother

Just a note: For those of you who were wondering, Inu no Taisho means basicly dog-father or, as popularized by the famous website, Inu Papa. I use this because Inu Papa has no real name and it's not my job to give him one. He might also be OOC, but that's cuz I don't have the third movie.

"You don't need to come out," Sesshoumaru said. "I think I hear someone coming."  
Sure enough, a few seconds later, a woman came out of the forest. She was tall and a bit overweight, with brown hair and green eyes.  
"Hey, Jaken, it's your Mom," Sesshouamru said.  
"Any chance you're adopted?" Rin asked.  
"SHUT UP!"  
"Jaken!" The woman said, zeroing in on the wooden door. "You get out here THIS SECOND or they will never find your body!"  
"…yes Mother."  
The door swung open, revealing a very sad-looking Jaken. (By this point the looks like the little toad-demon we all know and… uh… love. Yeah.)  
"Why didn't you come home last night? And…" his mother examined him a bit more.  
"You look different."  
"YA THINK?"  
"What happened?" With a little more precision, she looked around at the people in the clearing, from the dog eared boy on the ground to the regal white haired man to the oddly dressed teenagers and finally back to her own son. "What happened to all of you?"  
"All of us?" Inu no taisho protested. "Hmmm… Jaken, IS there any way that you're adopted?"  
"I don't think-"  
"Why? What's all this about? You guys aren't Satanists, are you?"  
"No, my dear woman, we are not Satanists."  
"THEN WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LITTLE BOY?"  
"Please, stop shrieking," Sesshoumaru, pressing his hands to his overly- sensitive ears. "That hurts."  
"Hmm… this is interesting." Inu no taisho said, thinking. "Jaken, you are most certainly a youkai, but your mother seems to be human. Something is horribly drastically wrong here."  
"Youkai? What's a youkai?"  
"Um… something like a demon."  
"You shouldn't have-" Jaken started.  
"SATANISTS!"  
"This is gonna take awhile," Inu no taisho said. As it turned out, he was wrong. Jaken's mother fumbled at her throat, coming up with a large silver cross on a chain. Holding it out, she slowly backed away from the others.  
"You stay away from me…"  
"Dad, will that-"  
"Nope. Totally harmless."  
"Mom, you're overreacting, put the cross away-"  
"You stay away too!" His mother cried, pointing the cross directly at Jaken. The boy slumped, taking his height down to a foot and a half.  
"I'm going to get my husband, and don't you even think about following me! Christ will keep your evil at bay!"  
With that, the woman turned and ran into the forest. No one made a move to follow her, and christ had nothing to do with it.  
"Well that was interesting."  
"Interesting? My mother just turned a cross on me!" Jaken dropped to the ground, looking sadly at the dirt. "I can't go home. So what do I do now?"  
Rin went and sat next to him. Sesshoumaru noticed that Jaken was just wearing a T-shirt, which looked comically big on him.  
"It'll be okay, Jaken. You'll see."  
"If it helps any, there's no way that woman can be your mother."  
"Yeah, thanks," Jaken snapped. "That helps a lot. You know what, how bout you guys and your super powers and your vaguely- human looking bodies leave me alone for a while? Yes?"  
"Jaken…"  
A huge rock flew at Jaken. The boy barely had time to register that it was there before it was on top of him. He pushed it back, and it went flying off into the woods.  
"What the HELL WAS THAT?"  
Inu no taisho, who had thrown the rock, sighed.  
"Well, given your current stature that rock should have killed you, but it didn't, proving that you're a lot better off than you think you are, as far as demonic power goes, so quit complaining."  
"Thanks for the sympathy."  
Rin put her arm around Jaken.  
"Come on, lighten up. It'll be okay. You'll see."  
"No it won't."  
"In any case, we might not want to stay here. Jaken's parents will no doubt return shortly and try to exorcise us."  
"Is that bad?"  
"Usually not, because they call on christ and not the ancient purifying power, but it is still rather annoying. See what normally will happen on one of these moons is a bunch of humans become hell-bent on exorcising everything in sight. Whole towns can rally just to try to purify one family, but that's mostly in the middle east. Anyway, today is going to be chaotic, everywhere in the world. Normally what happens is this. Some new demon gets their powers and marks. Convinced they're the only ones in the world going through it, they flee their parents and friends, like you three did. Then we, the parents, have to track you guys down. And then there's people like Jaken, who for whatever reason, don't have a youkai parent to tell them all of this. They're the problem kids."  
"What happens to them?"  
"Usually they can cover it up, and live out their lives pretending to be human. Sometimes they flee to wherever they can get away and become hermits. Sometimes they allow themselves to be purified, which never helps, and kills them if it works. Sometimes they kill themselves, convinced that they are becoming a tool of satan."  
'That's awful!"  
"And not very likely, we're hard to kill."  
"And what happens to us? What do I do? I've got nowhere to go except maybe the circus."  
"And that's where you're wrong. See, there's a choice that we make. All of us. There is, through a fluke or a spell or whatever, a portal to a long-gone past where youkai are common. Many of you will choose to go there. Many will stay behind, choosing their past lives over their possible futures."  
"So we have to pick between a life a thousand years in the past of a life here as freaks?"  
"Actually, Jaken, youkai like you usually have little choice in the matter."  
"Daddy? I wanna go home. I'm bored. Can we go home?" Inuyasha suddenly reappeared, tugging on his father's hand.  
Inu no taisho looked into the forest where Jaken's mother had gone. He sniffed and looked troubled.  
"Yeah. I think that would be best."  
Sesshoumaru listened hard. He heard a lot more noises than he could identify, but one he could was the sound of people coming, and by the smell of it, quite a few of them.  
Jaken's mother must have gotten more than her husband.

I'm sorry for this, religious fanatics are just too much not to make fun of. I read this 'anime is the work of satan' article and it was so stupid the author gave me the base for the character of Jaken's mother.

This chapter is dedicated to my dear enemy Tyko because she stopped IM ing me for long enough that I could write it, and for talking to me on the phone, even is she was using an electric razor to shave the receiver at the time.  
Also, to InuRyuuyoukai, for providing me with five minutes of entertainment while I tried to work out what your name was. Very original.


	6. Hanging out

To Invader Iza: Yes, updating fast is a common side effect of Not Having A Life Syndrome, which I have a fatal case of. However, the beginning is just about over and now I'm looking for some kind of plot line to follow… hmmmm….

To Kagome105: Of course I'll read your story. Just tell me when you write it. And, for reviewing each chapter separately, you get a plate of cookies! (Hands out cookies)

To Karvian: (shrugs) you may be right, I'm an atheist, I wouldn't know.

To Unfair: Yeah, it is kinda unfair that Inuyasha gets tessaiga and Sesshoumaru gets nothing, but on the other hand, that energy whip thing beats the crap out of 'sankon tessau' any day.

Note: It has recently come to my attention that there is no punctuation in the previous chapters. I didn't know about this and am deeply sorry, I'll try to fix it, however, being alerted to the situation would have been nice.

Jaken's mother must have gotten more than her husband.  
"Come on, let's get out of here before they find us."  
"What? Can't we fight them? We could kick some serious ass, no problem."  
"We can, that doesn't mean we should. What good thing could come from fighting these people? We fight them off, they leave, they come back with more. Eventually someone will get killed, and that's more attention than I want to draw to ourselves."  
"…Fine. Rin, get Jaken."  
"What? Get me?"  
Rin picked Jaken up and ran. Inu no Taisho grabbed Inuyasha and followed. Sesshoumaru held back, wanting to see exactly how far he could go against these people, but his father's words rang true. Besides, he had another idea. He jumped up into a tree, clearing the top branches easily. From this vantage he watched his father and friends move toward the other edge of the forest, where their house was. The people in the clearing spread out, searching. It was only a matter of time before one of them looked up. Sighing, Sesshoumaru jumped to the next tree, and the next. It was slow at first, but no slower than walking. After a minute he picked up a rhythm, and caught up to the others. It was weird, being so high up. If he had tried this the week before he probably would have been killed but now it seemed as natural as walking.  
He dropped down beside Rin, scaring her out of her wits.  
"Where'd you come from?"  
"Up there." Sesshoumaru pointed to the trees, which were thinning as they got into more populated areas.  
"You know what? I'm not even gonna ask."

As soon as they got back to the house, Jaken holed up in Sesshoumaru's room, keeping the lights out. Rin went to try to talk some sense into him. Inuyasha, who was completely unfazed by any of this, went into the living room to play with his legos some more, leaving Sesshoumaru to deal with his unhappy stepmother.  
"You shouldn't have taken your brother. I don't want him learning to climb out windows. "  
"Sorry Izayoi. I figured you'd see his ears and freak."  
"Freak? No way. They're cute. Like puppy ears."  
"Hey, where'd Dad go?"  
"Huh? I dunno. He was here a minute ago."  
At this point Inuyasha came bounding out of the living room.  
"Mommy, look what I can do!"  
He then proceeded to do his trick with the tessaiga."  
"Oh, that's where that thing got to."  
"You know about that weird sword?"  
"Kind of. Your father calls it the fang."  
"A fang's like this," Inuyasha said, grinning to show his lengthened canines.  
"You're so smart. You're right. Your father had one of his fangs made into that sword."  
"Wait, this is one of his teeth? How is that even possible?"  
"… that's a good question."  
Izayoi knew about the sword. Her husband had said he created to protect her, but she had her own sneaking suspicions about what had happened the night Inu no Taisho went out drinking with Totosai. She kept these to herself, however.  
"So why can't anyone but Inuyasha touch it?"  
"I can touch it. I must have picked it up a hundred times off the floor of his bedroom."  
"I can't touch it, Jaken either. Look, I'll show you."  
"No! it's my sword!"  
"Hand it over, brat."  
"Sesshoumaru, don't call your brother a brat. Inuyasha, share your toys."  
"Fine," both boys grumbled. Inuyasha handed the sword over to Sesshoumaru, who held it for five seconds before his hand caught on fire again. He would have held it longer, just to see how long he could last, but Inu no Taisho came in and told him to stop being stupid and drop it.  
"And where have you been?"  
"Out making sure none of the guys after us knew where we lived, it would be bad if they came and burned our house down wouldn't it?"  
"They wouldn't do that, Dad."  
"Heh. And what makes YOU the expert? How many mobs have you fought off, kiddo?"  
"How many have you, Daddy?"  
"More than you'll ever have to. Don't worry. We're safe here. On the other hand, Jaken might be rooming with you for a while, Sess. His parents look like they're about to lynch somebody."  
"But you said they weren't his parents."  
"They're not. But they think they are." Inu no Taisho laughed, a little scarily. "The best I can bet it's one of those weird switched-at-birth thing, in which case somewhere there's two parents scratching their heads and wondering why they've still got a human kid."  
"Oh, great," Jaken whined from Sesshoumaru's room.  
"Hey if you can hear us you might as well come out and quit griping."  
"Like hell!"  
"I could come and get you if you want!"  
"Okay, okay, geez, I'm coming!"  
Jaken dragged his feet on the way out of Sesshoumaru's room. Rin walked carefully behind him, like she thought a bomb was about to go off. She probably wasn't wrong, from the look on Jaken's face.  
"Oh, good," Inu no Taisho said. "I thought you were gonna be something really ugly from all you were going on."  
"Sarcasm not appreciated," Jaken snapped.  
"Who's being sarcastic?"  
"You're just making fun of meee!"  
"Wait until you see some of the creatures in the Sengoku Jidai, you'll get over yourself real quick."  
"Aw, man…"  
Inu no Taisho took Izayoi aside, and whispered a few words to her. She looked at him, then at the assortment of teenagers in the room, and then nodded and hurried off. For once, no one asked what was going on.  
"So what do we do now?"  
"It's up to you. Rin, you may want to go home. There's going to be, like I said, some strange things going on around the world, your parents will probably feel better knowing where you are. However, kindly don't repeat any of the things I have told you, and if anybody comes by looking for us-"  
"I never saw you."  
"Bingo."  
Rin nodded, looked wistfully at Jaken, and left.  
"Sesshoumaru, why don't you try to find Jaken something better than that to wear?"  
"Like what?"  
"Well, Inu's clothes might fit him…"  
"Oh great-" Jaken started, but Inu no Taisho was starting to give him cold looks, so he shut up.  
"Come on, we should probably be able to find you a nice Barney shirt." Sesshoumaru said, trying not to sound like he was kidding.  
In actuality, Jaken was a bit smaller than Inuyasha, so even the white shirt and tan pants they found for him were baggy. He tried not to complain, to give him credit.  
When the two of them came back downstairs, Inuyasha was in the kitchen, 'helping' his mother make sandwiches. Inu no Taisho was watching the news, a hint of amusement on his face. Sesshoumaru dropped onto the couch next to him, staring at the screen. On it, a worried newscaster was saying something about martians.  
"Somebody else is trying to conquer Earth," Inu no Taisho said.  
"Isn't that bad?"  
"Nah. It's just one of those kitsunes with their illusions. Most likely someone will figure it out within the hour, and the kid's parents will ground him and all shall return to normal."  
"Anything else of interest?"  
"Well, a lot of people in San Francisco are being possessed, but everyone thinks it's just a new cult. And a family of water sprites are trying to get from Cuba to the US, but the Coast Guard's keeping them back pretty well."  
"-in other news, airlines all over the world are scratching their heads at the surge of tickets to Tokyo, all of which one-way."  
"That related at all?"  
"That's where the well is, to the Sengoku Jidai."  
"Well? We go through a well?"  
"Yup. What'd you expect? A gate with customs?"  
"Well, no, I just didn't think about it."  
The television switched from the newscaster to an image of a fallen building. There were close ups of people crying, and not many solid facts.  
"That's terrible…"  
"It's inevitable. People die, people are killed. It's the way of life."  
Sesshoumaru looked sideways at his father, who was much calmer than he should have been watching the destruction on the television.  
"But… a demon that powerful… should we be worried?"  
Inu no Taisho turned to his son, a look of disbelief on his face.  
"That's nothing, a minor demon dangerous only to humans. You and I, son, are dai youkai, greater demons. We have nothing to fear as long as we are able to fight. But just because you can kill someone doesn't mean it's okay to. It took me most of my life to learn that, and that's why I'm telling you. Remember it."  
"Lunch!" Izayoi called from the kitchen.  
"All right, food!"  
Inu no Taisho jumped over the back of the couch, leaving his son to wonder how he switched gears so fast.

Sorry for the wait, I actually has social contact with a friend today, leaving me little time to write.  
Also, I was actually reading some fan fiction today, and noticed something that kinda bugged me,. Maybe I'm too used to dealing with the super-intellectuals in the JTHM section, but I think this should apply. There is a TIME AND PLACE to use chat-script (r, u, b4, etc) and a time to use are, you, and before. For fan fiction, please, take an extra second and make yourself not look stupid, all right?  
Fi uoy weiver uoy teg ykcop! Mmmmmm, ykcop.


	7. Miroku

Pocky to Althea Astera Renata, Warrioress of the Fang, and TFL. You guys have some serious names here. Back where I'm from it's mostly "Invader Cal, Invader Mar, JV2005 and Invader Doom." .  
Most of the stuff in this chapter based off what I remember my little sister being like as a 6-year- old.

"All right, food!"  
Inu no Taisho jumped over the back of the couch, leaving his son to wonder how he switched gears so fast.  
"Mmm, salami," said Jaken  
"Mmm, salami," said Inu no Taisho.  
"Mmm, salami," said Sesshoumaru, dropping into a seat at the kitchen table.  
"I don't like salami," said Inuyasha, peeling the meat off his sandwich.  
"You liked salami last week, dear."  
"Well now I hate it," the six year old stated, eating his salami-less sandwich. It was now just bread and mustard, but if he cared he didn't show it.  
At this peaceful moment, an explosion rocked the ground.  
"What the hell?" Sesshoumaru, Inu no Taisho and Jaken said together, jumping up from the table and rushing to the window.  
"You guys said a bad word," Inuyasha said, trying to push between them to see what was happening.  
"Wind's picked up," Jaken observed. It was a bit of an understatement.  
"A tornado?" Izayoi asked.  
"I'm going to check it out," Seshoumaru said, ducking out the door before anyone could stop him.  
"I'm going too!" Jaken yelled.  
"Not like that you're not!" Izayoi got a big brown hat and pulled it down over Jaken's pointed ears. So long as no one looked closely, he could pass as a little kid. Grumbling, he hurried after Sesshuomaru and Inu no Taisho.  
"I wanna go to, Mom!"  
"Oh, no, you're staying right here with me," Izayoi said, grabbing her son in a bear hug and holding him to her chest. She stared out the window at the wind, hoping they would be okay.

"I know that house!" Jaken shouted as they approached the place where the explosion had gone off. "They go to our church!"  
"Went, more like," Sesshoumaru said, staring at the destruction. There was a huge crater in the front yard, into which the wind seemed to be pouring. The sound of the air running through the trees almost, but not quite, drowned out the sound of screaming.  
"DADDY! DAAAADDDYYY!"  
"There's a kid around here somewhere!"  
Sesshoumaru tried to smell the air, but it was moving to quickly to get any scents. He would have to find the kid the old fashioned way: look.  
His father ran to the left side of the crater, so he took the right. He noticed Jaken coming up behind him, but ignored his friend.  
Somewhere around here, by the sound of it…  
There!  
The kid was still screaming for his father, and running… into the wind?  
What the hell?  
Sesshoumaru jumped, grabbing a kid out of the air for the second time in 24 hours.  
"What are you trying to do, get yourself killed?"  
The wind seemed to get stronger, and Sesshoumaru's feet started to slip on the grass. He jumped farther from the crater, much to the child's displeasure.  
"PUT ME DOWN!"  
"No way!"  
The wind was building up to it's climax, and Sesshoumaru couldn't move fast enough. He had to get further away-  
A green mist swirled around him, ignoring the pull of the wind. After a second it solidified into a bubble around the two of them, which bore them quickly away.  
"I think… am I doing this?"  
The kid had stopped screaming, now watching the wind with pure sorrow in his eyes. The wind started to die down as the bubble popped, depositing them a safe distance from the huge crater. It got slower and slower, and seemed to switch directions, now blowing toward the two. Or, more precisely, Sesshoumaru saw, toward the kid. The kid stared at his right hand for a second, then hurridly dug in one of his pockets. Hurry turned to panic as he held his right hand away from him, digging desperately with his left. Then he found what he was looking for, a string of prayer beads. He wrapped them around his hand and the wind stopped dead. The kid dropped to the ground, panting.  
The dirt and dust thrown up but the wind started to settle. Several people appeared out of the haze, talking nervously to themselves. Sesshoumaru remembered what Jaken had said about his church, and decided it would be good to make himself scarce. Also judging by the fact that this kid's father had obviously just kicked the bucket, he would need someone to tell him about the hundredth moon.  
He grabbed the kid by the back of his blue shirt, and willed the bubble to form. It did, popped, formed again, stronger, and started to move. Sesshoumaru kept it close to the ground, just in case.  
"You're awfully quiet all of a sudden, kid."  
The kid didn't say anything. Sesshoumaru listened closely, and realized he was sobbing softly. His father's words came back to him.  
'People die, people are killed. It's the way of life.'  
He forced himself not to feel anything for the kid, or his father. He didn't know them, it wasn't his problem.  
He didn't look at the kid the rest of the way back to his home. He dropped down onto his front lawn, the bubble popping again. Izayoi opened the front door, staring at her stepson and the newest arrival, who was sitting on the grass and staring at the prayer beads wrapped around his hand. The possible awkwardness of the moment was broken by the unsurpassable socialites of six year olds, in other words, Inuyasha ran out the door, dropped in front of the kid, and asked "What's your name?"  
"… Miroku."  
"Hi Miroku, I'm Inuyasha. Wanna play with me?"  
Sessumaru left the rest of the conversation to them, pushing past his stepmother into the house.  
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, but he just shook his head, grabbed the remainder of his sandwich, and made for his room.  
Through the closed door he heard his father come back with Jaken.  
He tried forming the bubble a few more times, and absentmindedly wondered what else he could do.  
There came a timid knock on his door, and then it swung open. The only person who opened his door without consent was-  
"Get out of my room, Brat."  
"But Miroku has something he wants to say and he won't play with me till he says it."  
"Yeah, what?" he asked without turning around.  
"I'm sorry."  
Sesshoumaru didn't move.  
"I would have died if you hadn't grabbed me, and you almost died as well. For that I'm sorry."  
'Kid talks like an adult,' he thought.  
"I wouldn't have been killed," he said. "My dad tell you about the hundredth moon?"  
"No."  
"Get him to. And get out of my room."  
But as Miroku and Inuyasha left, forgetting to shut the door, Sesshoumaru got a whiff of the kid's scent. He was… human?  
More mysteries. Ah well. Today was be full of them.  
The door opened all the way again.  
"Sesshy? Dad wants you."  
"One sec, I'll be right there."  
He rolled off his bed and walked back out of his room.  
"Yo, Sessh. What's up with this kid, you know?"  
His father angled his head toward where Inuyasha was showing his latest lego creation to Miroku.  
"I dunno. He seems to attract the wind. Whatever that explosion was it killed his father."  
"Oh really. So what's up with the beads?"  
"How should I know? Ask him."  
"No way."  
"Fine, than go without knowing. I don't care."  
His father looked sideways at him.  
"Are you okay?"  
Sesshoumaru continued to look straight ahead, his eyes unfocused.  
"You seem awfully distant. The change messing with your head or something, kiddo?"  
He rubbed the fuzzy top of Sesshoumaru's head.  
"I'm going back in my room."  
Inu no Taisho watched the door swing shut, wondering if there wasn't something else in his son's head.

This chapter dedicated to Kitsune Ryune, (betcha thought I forgot you, huh?) And yes, I know I already gave you one but if it weren't for your review I wouldn't even have this written, cuz I was kinda having a teensy bit of writer's block. Plus, it's my story, I'll dedicate chapters to whoever I damn well please. (Grrr…)  
Just a question on the off chance that you guys care. I was reading that there was this action figure givaway, Inuyasha Full Demon or whatever. There was a picture of the thing and he's full demon, with the Tessaiga right there in it's sheath. Do have my facts wrong or did somebody screw up bad at the toy factory?  
Also, the 'y' and 'z' in Inuyasha's mother's name seem to be interchangeable. Is there an official way, or is it another Tetsusaiga vs. Tessaiga?


	8. Sango

This chapter is dedicated to Kikyomustdieapainfuldeath, who has threatened my life and in doing so sealed their own fate. .  
Flames are okay, however threatening to kill me is one of those little things that will bring eternal vengeance down upon your doomed soul, okay? 

And, hooray for me! This chapter marks 25 pages of story. Yay! This chapter was born from my strange love of differing POVs!  
Oh, I didn't mention it, but Miroku's about eight or nine. Him getting his wind tunnel on this day was a coincidence. Yup, coinckydink…

Ten year old Sango stared out the window, watching the commotion. Her parents had forbidden her to leave the house until whatever was going on had stopped. She thought they knew more than they were letting on, but they weren't gonna tell her, so she didn't ask.  
Nut that didn't mean she didn't intend to find out. She walked slowly upstairs, watching her parents, who where nervously watching the television. If they noticed her leave, they didn't show it.  
In her room, she rummaged through her closet, pushing away the carefully piled clothes, to reveal the floor. Searching, she found the loose floorboard, and pulled it up. Underneath, amid the dust bunnies, shiny stones and treasures, was an old paper scroll. She had found it in their attic a year past, and it was her own secret.  
On it, written mostly in kanji, were records of her ancestors, going all the way back to the sengoku jidai. Her family had originated in Japan, and so her parents had done their best to teach her a little Japanese. She was able to make out what it said, although the paper had obviously been through some hard times. In the upper left hand corner was a dark spot which she fancied to be blood but was more likely coffee.  
The most interesting thing about it, however, were the descriptions of the family legacy. In the sengoku jidai, they had been powerful youkai slayers, and no demon could stand to them. When Sango had first read of this, it was the most amazing thing she had ever discovered, and so it became her secret. She kept the scroll in her secret space, and no one had seen it but her.  
She had started to find out everything she could about youkai, reading and memorizing anything she could. She'd even tried to learn how to use a samurai sword, though she wasn't very good at it.  
Now, she felt, she had a chance to make her ancestors proud. She had a chance to become like them, to fight youkai like they had. And she wasn't going to pass it up for anything.  
She dug out her roller skate bag, pushing the skates aside and getting the knee, elbow, and wrist pads. The put them on, carefully, determined that they would not fall off.  
She got her sword. It was a family heirloom, a gift from her parents when they discovered she was serious about learning to use one. Pulling it out of it's sheath, she tested the blade, finding it to be as sharp as ever.  
"Perfect."  
She wrapped the ribboned sash around her waist, making sure the knot was secure. It was.  
Then she slid her window open, as silently as she had practiced night after night, her parents sleeping peacefully in the next room. The closest branch of the tree was five feet away. This, she had not practiced so often.  
She climbed onto the sill, held her breath, and jumped. Too low.  
The branch slammed into her chest, knocking the wind out of her. She started to slip, but wrapped her arms around the wood, stopping her descent.  
So far so good.  
She looked below her. The ground was far away, but if she could get closer, there was another branch she could drop onto.  
She let go with one hand, throwing her arm around the other side, and clasped her fingers together. The weight of her body was on the palms of her hands, her body hanging ten feet above the ground. She started to move hand-over- hand toward the trunk of the tree. Just when she though she couldn't hold on any longer, she felt the other branch touch her foot. Relieved, she dropped onto it, taking the weight off her arms.  
That done, she dropped the remaining five feet to the ground, landing in a crouch, and ran off.  
There had to be someone who knew where the youkai were.  
She didn't have to go far before she came to a gathering of people. Some of them held rosaries, others held guns. As far as she could tell, she was the only one with a sword.  
The group seemed to be focused around a sobbing woman, who claimed her son had been possessed by demons. She pushed thorough the group to the woman, trying to look older than she was.  
"You say your son was possessed? By youkai?"  
"Youkai… that's who word the other demons used! DEMON!"  
Several people turned on her, ready for some action.  
"No, I'm not a demon, I'm a youkai slayer. I think I can help. Where did you last see these demons?"  
"We've already been there, girl," said one of the men with a gun. "There's nothing left, go home, there's dangerous monsters out here."  
"I think I can handle them, sir," she said without looking away from the woman's tear-stained face.  
"It was in the forest, an old hunting blind. That way." the woman pointed. "There were five of them, three demons, a teenage girl, and the creature my son had become. My son, Jaken, his body had changed… he was tiny, green, like a toad. The demons were easy to tell, they had snow white hair, and the youngest had the ears of a dog. The older one was a teenager, he had satanic markings painted on his face, in red and blue. The lot of them had amber eyes."  
"And the girl?"  
"Nothing special about her. She must have been their next intended victim. I can only hope she got away when the creatures fled from the sight of the cross." She pulled out a large silver cross to demonstrate.  
'Fled from the cross? I've never heard of youkai doing that…'  
"Thank you, ma'am. I'll do everything I can to bring the youkai down and return your son to you."  
Sango turned to leave.  
"Wait! You're going off alone?"  
"Yes?"  
The woman stared at the child with something like awe. Then she lifted the cross over her head, trailing the chain behind it. She handed it to Sango.  
"Go, and may god be with you."  
"Thank you."  
Sango pulled her black ponytail through the chain's loop, and tucked it inside her black shirt. Then she ran off toward the forest, trying to remember where she'd seen the white haired family before, she knew she had seen them somewhere…

She never made it to the forest. Just as she was about to enter the trees, an explosion occurred, close to her. The wind picked up, a lot.  
"Youkai!"  
She ran toward the source of the strange wind, noticing that it got stronger as she got closer. She would have to be careful.  
As she rounded a corner, a huge crater came into view. The wind seemed to be blowing into it. Somewhere, another kid was screaming. Sango thought of trying to find him, but she had problems of her own. The wind was puling her in! She moved away from the crater, leaning against the wind. At least she knew how close she could get.  
The kid stopped screaming, and Sango didn't wonder what had happened to him. She decided to look at all of this from a different angle, and moved around the perimeter of the wind. And ten she saw him.  
The eldest youkai, looking at the crater, a small child by his feet. A child or…  
The child was green!  
It must be that woman's son. Jaken?  
Maybe if she were to kill the demons, the boy would regain his own body and mind. It was worth a shot. But first she had to find where the other two were. It was likely that the eldest was the one possessing Jaken, but it wouldn't do at all to have to fight all three at once.  
She was good, but not that good.  
She would just have to follow this one until the other two came to him.  
The wind was dying down, the youkai looked around nervously. People would be showing up, soon, to find out what was happening. As the dust and debris settled, she saw the teenage youkai, on the other side of the crater, He had a kid with him. As Sango watched, he enclosed both himself and the kid in some kind of barrier, and floated off.  
That boy… he must be the youkai's next victim, in place of the teenage girl!  
Sango was so mad she almost didn't see the elder youkai and Jaken disappear into the woods. She followed them, trying to keep a good distance while keeping then within eyesight.  
When they cleared the woods, she expected to find a haunted castle, or a cave entrance littered with bones. Instead, the youkai led Jaken into a house that looked almost like hers. They had the same mailbox.  
That should not be allowed. Evil creatures were required to live in scary homes, right?  
"There should be a law," Sango muttered. "Have to get closer."  
Drawing her sword, just in case, she spent five minutes sneaking across the street before she realized she would have to hurry up if she was ever going to find anything.  
'The youngest, first,' she thought. She knew about succession of power in youkai, and no matter how young the youkai was, if he had the power of his older comrades he could still be a challenge.  
The first window she looked on seemed to be a kitchen. There was a woman at the counter, and no matter how hard Sango looked at what she was cutting, it still didn't look any more evil than the carrot it was. Through a doorway she could see the elder youkai sitting on a couch talking to Jaken, who sat beside him.  
No sign of the little kid.  
She moved to the next window, a dark room, it looked empty. So did the third room.  
The fourth window looked into a teenager's room. He was lying on his bed with earphones on over pointed ears. His hair as white, and he had a youkai's markings on his face and what she could see of his forearms. How Jaken's mother got 'satanic markings' out of the simple stripes, Sango didn't know.  
The teenager's amber eyes flicked in her direction, she ducked. Not too late, she hoped. Moving on her hands and knees, she moved around the corner of the house. Not a second after she got out of sight she heard the window open. She didn't hear anyone coming.  
Well, that accounted for the older two, but what about the youngest?  
He had to be around here somewhere.  
She looked into another window. There he was.  
The dog-eared youkai sat on the rug in front of a television. The device was spewing some childish nonsense show, but neither the youkai or the other boy, the boy from the wind crater, were watching. The youkai folded some blue fabric across the palm of the boy's right hand. It seemed to be some kind of glove. Then the youkai wrapped some blue beads around it, and said something to the boy, who nodded.  
This had to be the spell which would possess the boy! She had to do something.  
Sango searched for other options, and seeing none, backed away from the large window. She was going in.

Sesshoumaru looked back and forth across the ground in front of his window. There had definitely been someone here. Human, by the smell of it. He had to tell his father.  
He was distracted by the sound of breaking glass. Inuyasha screamed.  
Sesshoumaru bolted out of the room, heading for the living room. He expected to see some muscle bound man with a gun trained on his half-brother. He was prepared to kill that man.  
What he was not prepared for was a little girl with a sword, but his momentum did not allow him to re-evaluate the situation. He slammed into the girl, sending her to the ground. He took advantage of this to pin her to the ground. Her sword fell from her hand, which as pressed to the carpet under Sesshoumaru's claws.  
This happened just in time for his father and stepmother to arrive, the knife and carrot his mother had been peeling still in her hands.  
"What on Earth?" she asked.

"Wow! Sesshy, that was awesome!"  
"Don't call me that, Brat!"  
Sango looked at the youkai pinning her to the ground. She did not like the situation. There were not bones on the ground. There weren't possessed slaves moaning. There wasn't even the smell of blood.  
She looked like the bad guy.  
She desperately wished she hadn't dropped her sword. She tried to reach for it, only to be met with more pressure on her wrists.  
"LET ME GO!" she shrieked.  
The eldest youkai knelt over her. She clenched her eyes shut, sure her soul was about to be stolen, or her heart torn out, or something equally horrible. Nothing happened. She cracked open an eye.  
The three youkai stared down at her, questions in their faces.  
"What are you doing here?" The teenager demanded.  
"I'm a youkai slayer, come to release the prisoners you youkai have taken! I'll give you a chance to release them and I'll let you die quickly!"  
"You're a human kid." The teenager stated.  
"A swordless human kid," the elder corrected.  
"We have prisoners?" the boy asked. "Where?"  
"We don't have prisoners, honey," the woman said, a hint of laughter in her voice.  
"Let me go! I'll kill you!"  
"Doesn't give me much incentive then," the teenager said, his voice turning cold. It felt as if his hands were heating up, burning her wrists.  
"Stop that!" she cried, fighting harder against her captor. "That hurts!"  
"Sesshoumaru, let the kid go, she isn't going anywhere," the elder said, picking up her sword. "Not without this, anyway."  
Sesshoumaru let go of her. She looked at her wrist. Where his clawed fingers had been there were red marks, and the skin was tender.  
"You didn't have to burn me, youkai."  
"Burn you?"  
She held out her reddened wrists, giving a dirty look to the elder, who was looking over her sword with some interest.  
"I did that?" Sesshoumaru asked. "Huh."  
He stared at his hands. Other than the claws in place of his fingernails, they looked the same.  
"This is an interesting sword. Where did you get it?"  
"Like I'd tell you, youkai."  
"Judging by the fact that you are but a human child here alone, with no significant power at all, I would assume that no one knows you are here. Moreover, I don't know you, neither anyone in my family. If you were to dissappear, no one would suspect us any more than they already do. Getting to the point, this can be easy or hard, depending on your level of cooperation."  
"That was quite a speech, for a soulless monster."  
"Fine. I'll just keep it then. Probably someone in the sengoku jidai can tell me where it's from. Oh, and I'll have to kill you so you can't repeat that."  
"Wait!"  
"Sesshoumaru, would you please-"  
"I'll tell you!"  
"Thought you might."  
"It's an old heirloom from my family's origin's in Japan."  
"That I know."  
"Legend says my ancestors fought a great dog demon. He killed nearly all of my family, but was badly injured, and fled, leaving the sword behind."  
"Oh. So that's what happens to it, is it?"  
"According to legend."  
"Hear that? Take better care of it, now that you know, all right?" the elder said, handing it to Sesshoumaru.  
"What's this for?"  
"That's the tenseiga, brother to the tessaiga. One for each of you. And I had a tooth pulled to make you that, so be grateful."  
Sesshoumaru retrieved the sheath, using the yellow and blue sash to tie it around his waist. The sword felt lighter than it should have. The blade was sharp, and tapered toward the end in a gentle curve.  
"I won't let a youkai carry my sword," Sango said.  
"That's a youkai sword, I had it made myself. You're the one who shouldn't have it. We'll keep it."  
"OVER MY DEAD BODY!" Sango shrieked, pulling the silver cross out and brandishing it at the youkai. Inuyasha fell back onto the carpet, moaning and theatrically rolling around. The other two gave her tired looks.  
"Not this again," Sesshoumaru said.  
"Wait! That's my mom's! Where did you get that?"  
Jaken appeared in front of Sango, grabbing at the silver cross.  
"She gave it to me," Sango said with a sigh, handing the necklace over. "According to her, you guys fled from the sight of it. I thought that was a little suspicious."  
Inuyasha got bored with rolling around on the floor and came to see what they were looking at.  
"That keeps vampires away," he stated, pointing to the cross.  
"So let me get this straight. You're not possessed?"  
"No. Sorry, kiddo."  
"And you three aren't evil youkai, possessing him?"  
"No."  
"Then what about the explosion? And kidnapping that little kid inside that bubble?"  
"Who, Miroku? He's free to go. As for the explosion, ask him."  
"Miroku?"  
"I don't want to talk about it."  
"Will it happen again?"  
"Yes. But not for a long time, I think."  
"Okay then. Well, can anyone explain the rest of what's happening today to me?"  
"We've told you to much already, 'youkai slayer,'" Sesshoumaru said. "How bout you go home and don't say anything to your parents?"  
"No way. Not until I find out what's going on."  
"…do we have any other options? I'd really really like to involve as few humans as possible."  
"I'm going back to my room. If anything needs killed, call me."

Yay! 31 pages!  
Okay, I'm going to my grandparent's n Wednesday armed with naught but a spellcheck-less laptop with no connectios, short hiatus, but I'll be back in about 2 weeks, so BIG update then, story probably ending.


	9. Naraku

Miroku's kinda hard to write for when he's younger, being perverted is kinda like the backbone of his personality. So sorry for that. I've kinda written myself into a corner here, if anyone has any good ideas or just things you want to see in this story, well, you know what to do. (Message to morons: Review)

Also, this chapter is dedicated to everyone who read my other Inuyasha fic, Nothing can hurt you now. For the reviewers who asked why, here's your answer: Because I am both evil and insane, plus a little bored. That particular fic would probably have been better if I had a real human soul, but mine is a knock-off and devoid of any sense of right or wrong. That said, here's the next chapter! .

My father is really dead.

It's not like it was a surprise, he told me long ago that this would happen. He also told me to stay inside and keep the prayer beads close when it did, but I never was a good listener when it came to the deaths of family members.

I looked at the kazaana in my own hand. Inuyasha had given me a handkerchief to wrap around it, and paired with the prayer beads, I think that this should suffice to keep the void at bay. For a while, at least.

So here I am now, where exactly, I don't know. But I seem to have fallen in with a rather interesting crowd as of late. Four demons, a human woman, and a youkai slayer, all under one roof. And then there's me.

The girl, Sango, she's the most interesting of the lot. She jumped right through a window planning to kill, I gather, anyone with youkai blood. When she realized that nothing evil at all was happening here, she stuck around to hear Inu no Taisho tell the story, for the thousandth time, it seemed, of the hundredth moon and what that meant to the youkai.

Fascinating stuff, I wonder if my father had known any of it.

He had known a good deal about youkai, actually, since one of them had cursed my ancestor, and the curse carried down to me. There used to be a family feud against the demon, but that was ages ago, none of us know where to find him now. He disappeared so long ago, he could be anywhere by now.

There seem to be a good deal more youkai around then I had thought. Four, right here in my own county! Well, Inuyasha says he's a hanyou, but to me half-youkai is just as weird as the original thing.

And then there's Sesshoumaru, who I can't figure out for the life of me. When I first saw him, well, he was saving my life actually, but three minutes later he looked as if he couldn't care less. When Sango came through the window he was there, and looking like he would kill to protect his brother, but when it became apparent that Sango wasn't a threat, he disappeared back into his room, where he's been ever since.

The fact that he burned her wrists and didn't know he did it also leads me to believe that he has a lot more power than he knows about. The burns, when examined, turned out to be more like a rash, brought on by a low level poison.

I will be keeping my distance from him in the future.

Sango, on the other hand...

Everything I've always thought about my ancestors might be wrong. I always thought we were great warriors, fighting off many legged, baby eating monsters.

Sango looked at Inuyasha, happily eating his mustard sandwich. His dog ears twitched at sounds, making her want to reach over and pet one of them.

This is a youkai? This is what we fought?

Or is this the exception, rather than the rule?

This was too much to think about.

"I have to go home. My parents will have realized I'm not in my room by now."

"Bye Sango! Come back to play, okay?" Inuyasha gave her a hopeful grin.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll definitely see you again."

"And me?" Miroku said, appearing behind her.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess."

"Be careful going home!" Izayoi told her, as she walked through the door.

"I will!"

She might stop on her way there. There was a place in the woods, a place where a willow tree had been wrapped in vines, creating a dome of green light. She went there often, it was a pleasant place to just sit and think. And she had a lot to think about now.

Sesshoumaru was trying very very hard to listen to his music and zone out of anything that might be happening outside his door. There were a thousand smells he didn't know, even in his own room, and it was annoying him.

A shadow came between him and the light. Annoyed that he hadn't heard the door open, he cracked open one amber eye, to see someone totally new.

The man had black hear and red eyes. Like Sesshoumaru, he had markings on his face, but they were limited to blue on his eyelids. He was wrapped in a white fur, which completely covered any other features he might have.

"Greetings, lord Sesshoumaru."

Sesshoumaru took off his headphones, and stood up. The newcomer was a lot less scary eye-to eye, but there was still something about him Sesshoumaru didn't trust.

"What do you want?"

"Tell me, Sesshoumaru... Do you know who you are?"

"This is some kind of trick question, right?"

"No. Not at all. I can see there is much that even your father has not told you."

"And how would you know? Who are you?"

"You can call me Naraku."

"Naraku, huh? And what brings you here?"

"You have not yet answered my question. Do you know who you are?"

"I suppose you can tell me, if I do not."

"You are the son of the greatest youkai to ever live. But your father has sacrificed his power to live among humans. The next in the line of succession is you, making to the most powerful youkai alive."

"He failed to mention that."

"I thought as much."

"So what does this have to do with you?"

"Another thing he may not have told you is that there is a place for youkai such as us to go, where we can use our power as we wish."

"The sengoku jidai?"

"Correct. Tell me, does 'world domination' mean anything to you?"

"You're not serious."

"But I am. Between the two of us we have more than enough power to take, literally, anything we want."

"If that's true, then why didn't my father do it a long time ago?"

"Your father has a weakness. A soft spot, if you will, for humans. He sees them as a lot more than they are. Youkai like us, we're better than them. Your father doesn't see that."

"So my father gave up infinite power for a human and a half-breed? That's stupid!"

Naraku smiled.

"Exactly."

"All right, I'm listening. So how to we get to this sengoku jidai?"

"Sesshy! Sesshy we're on TV!" Inuyasha came bursting through the door, yelling.

"What did I tell you about knocking!"

Sesshoumaru turned back to Naraku, but he had disappeared.

"Who were you talking to, Sesshy?"

The youkai shook his head.

"Nobody."

"Well come on! We're on TV!"

"We're what?"

He followed his brother to the living room, where everyone was gathered around the screen.

"Mom's over exaggerating again," Jaken said sullenly.

"Sesshoumaru, wait till you see the drawings they got the police investigators to do."

"They're hilarious," Inu no Taisho said.

"I don't think that's exactly the word I would have chosen..." Miroku said.

On the screen, Jaken's mother, who had apparently found someone to interview her, was done sobbing about the horrible possession of her son and was now talking about the young girl who had gone to slay the demons and never returned.

"I gave her my cross, which had warded off the demons in the woods. She left, and shortly after there was an awful explosion," she sobbed. "The girl must have been killed."

"Wait, Sango isn't back home yet?" Miroku asked. "What if something happened to her?"

"She's OK," Inuyasha said. "If she could fight Sesshy she'll definitely be okay."

"She could not fight me, dummy."

Jaken's mother dissolved into tears, and the reporter one again filled the screen.

"There you have it. Monsters, demons, loose in our very own town. We are advising everyone to remain inside until the suspects are caught."

"Fine with us," Izayoi said with a grin.

"We are also asking everyone to keep their eyes open, and help the police to find the suspects. We have had witnesses talk to police artists, who have drawn the following sketches."

"We look scary," Inuyasha said as the pictures rolled by.

"They're stupid," Sesshoumaru said. "They can be prejudiced or honest, not both. I guess we know which one they chose."

He stormed back to his room, and checked under the bed, in the closet, even in his drawers.

"What on earth are you looking for?" Naraku said from the ceiling.

"There you are."

"You think I would hide in a closet? I think you have confused me with your childhood bogeyman."

"Shut up. Whatever deal you're about to push at me, I'll take it, and you can explain on the way to the airport."

"First you have to prove yourself."

"Prove what? I said I'll go, now lets move, I want out of here."

"You have to prove that you're not soft, like your father, or like the humans."

"Fine. What do I do?"

"The girl. Sango. You have to kill her."

"Why her?"

"Why does it matter? One human or another?"

"Fine."

Naraku faded off the ceiling, disappearing like the Cheshire cat. Only he wasn't grinning.

Sesshoumaru climbed out his window again, momentarily wondering at all the things that had happened since he did the same thing late the night before.

Sango's scent was strong outside the window, where she had stopped to look in. From there, it was easy to follow her path away from the house. She had wandered into the forest, for some reason. Sesshoumaru didn't care. It made his job that much easier. The pictures on television didn't look much like him, but there were a limited amount of people with white hair like his.

Find her, kill her, get the hell out of here.

Easy.

I learned a new Japanese word today while I was watching some subs. It's actually a curse, 'temeae' (sp?) meaning 'you.' It's the reason that they say Inuyasha swears a lot.

See the word means you, but translated into English it would be more like 'you bastard.' He uses it to talk to pretty much everybody, but there's no way to translate it and not sound stupid, so a lot of it gets lost in the translation.

I picked that up all by myself, I'm so proud.

I would just like you to know that I walked about a mile in the rain to get to a computer with a connection to get you this. (Okay, maybe 'mile' and 'rain' are pushing it, but it was far and wet.)

Review? Please?

Sango sat in the top branches of her tree, staring at the clouds. It looked as if it might rain later. But for now, the sun was shining and all was well.

She remembered the look of fear on Inuyasha's face as she came through the window. The simple amusement in Izayoi's eyes, Inu no Taisho's easy laugh.

Was this what her people killed?

Were youkai so bad after all?

She didn't know, and it was troubling her a lot.

That, and she had to explain to her parents how she had lost her sword. She was not looking forward at all to telling them.

She sighed, settling down onto the branch.

That could wait.

The scent stopped here. She had either disappeared, or gone up... Sesshoumaru's amber eyes followed the trunk of the tree up, up to the girl in the top branches. She was deep in concentration, and didn't even see him.

Perfect.

He pressed his hand to the trunk of the tree, testing his newest weapon. Sure enough, the bark withered and burned from the poison in his hands. It left a black mark in the shape of his hand, which would be there until the tree died.

Trying not to focus too hard on what he was about to do, Sesshoumaru started to climb to tree, not making a sound.

Miroku hadn't been sure exactly why Sesshoumaru had chosen to go out his window instead of the front door, but he had a terrible suspicion it had to do with Sango. He had been worried enough when she hadn't gone home, and there was something about the teenager he just didn't trust at all.

He hadn't been expecting to be forced to use the wind tunnel in his lifetime, but when Sesshoumaru began to climb toward Sango, he didn't really think. He held his hand out in front of him like a shield.

"Sesshoumaru! Get away from her!"

Sango sat straight up, almost falling out of the tree as she did so. She looked at Miroku.

"Miroku? What are you doing here?"

"I swear I'll open this!"

"Open what?" Sesshoumaru said, not slowing. He had almost reached Sango, who had just noticed him. Miroku didn't answer, instead he pulled open the knot on the handkerchief, and pulled the beads aside. The resulting wind shook the trees side to side, threatening to pull them from the earth. Miroku kicked himself for not considering the dangers, but he had had very few options at the time, so he forgave himself.

Sango got a good hold on the tree's trunk, and managed to hold on as the tree waved back and forth in the wind. Sesshoumaru was not so lucky. The bark on the tree dug into his hands, he transferred the pain into a growl, but kept his hold.

Far enough away from this not to be observed, Naraku shook his head. Sesshoumaru was capable of so much more, if he would remember that he was stronger than this. Sighing, he pulled from within his white fur a small hive, watching as several large bees flew on a suicide path into the wind.

Several things happened simultaneously. The bees flew into the kazaana, sending spirals of pain up Miroku's arm. Sesshoumaru was ripped from the tree, flying at great speed toward his doom. Miroku closed the kazaana, and ducked at the same time, barley noticing as Sesshoumaru flew over his head to slam into another tree, and fall to the ground, unconscious. Sango dropped from branch to branch, finally landing on the ground. She rushed to Miroku's side.

"Are you okay? What happened? What was that thing?"

"I'm... okay.." Miroku said slowly. The pain had spread across his chest now, and he was deeply worried for his personal safety.

"What did you do?"

"The kazaana... Air void..."

"And that's... In your hand?"

"Yeah."

"Does it hurt to open it? Is that why you're like this?"

"No... Took something in... Poison?"

"Oh. Oh man... We have to get you to an ambulance or something. Can you walk, if I support you?"

"I can try..."

Sesshoumaru opened his eyes to find Naraku looking disapprovingly down at him.

Ow.

That was his first thought.

And his second.

His third was 'He sure does look pissed."

"What the hell was that thing?"

"The kazaana, the air void that I cursed his ancestor with a long time ago."

"You knew about that thing?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't think it might be nice to maybe tell me?"

"I wasn't expecting him to show up. But I have disposed of the boy, and he will no longer be bothering us."

"You still could have said something."

"The girl, I may mention, is still alive."

Sesshoumaru sat up, rubbing his head. There was blood on his forehead, dripping from a cut that was definitely going to leave a scar.

"I'll kill her for you once that boy is nice and dead, okay? I can't kill him if he's got a black hole in his hand."

"It doesn't matter."

"Fine, whatever. I am not in any position to be working out riddles right now."

"You took a tree to the head."

"Oh, really? Gee, I just figured I had a migraine." Sarcasm dripped from the teenager's words.

"Another reason youkai are superior to humans. Had you still been human, you would be dead right now. As you are, your injuries will probably have healed completely by the time we get to Japan."

"... Japan? Oh yeah. The well."

"But we have to go somewhere else first. I have something I'd like to take care of before I go back."

"What?"

"A little revenge."

Hospitals, Sango soon discovered, were terribly boring places. Everything was the same color. People all around her were sobbing, and every once in a while an ashen- faced relative would receive the news of a death. The subsequent screams of grief did not fill Sango with hope. Quite the opposite actually.

After half an hour she fed a few quarters into a pay phone and called her parents. The conversation went something like this.

"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Oh! Sango! We've been so worried!" her mother covered the receiver and yelled back to her father that Sango was on the phone.

"We were worried sick, with all those monsters on the loose and you were missing, and that woman on TV said-"

Her father picked up the other line.

"Sango?"

"Hey dad."

"You went off to try to fight those things, didn't you?"

"How did you know?"

"Your sword was missing. Okay, more important question: Any luck?"

"Um, no. About my sword-"

"Never mind that, honey," her mother said. "Where are you? We're coming to get you. Don't take one step outside whatever door you're nearest."

"I'm at the hospital, mom."

"They hurt you that bad? Those ratbas-"

"Dad, I'm fine. It's a friend of mine that got hurt. I don't know if he'll... Be okay. I'm gonna stay, but I just wanted to let you know I'm alive."

"Oh."

"Oh."

"Well okay then. Give us another call when you want to come home."

"I will, mom."

"Tell your friend to get better for us, okay?"

"I will."

"Bye.

"Bye mom. Bye dad."

Sango dropped the phone back on it's hook. Then she dispiritedly made her way back to the room where Miroku was. They didn't have a name for the poison, not to mention an antidote, so the only course of action left to them was to drain a lot of his blood, and hope the poison was diluted enough not to kill him.

She sat by his bed, trying not to worry. True, she'd only known him for a few hours, but he was like this because he had tried to help her. He had saved her life... And hopefully not sacrificed his own in return.

"Miroku... Don't die, okay?"

The unconscious boy didn't respond. An orderly came into the room with a bunch of papers clipped onto a board. He looked from Miroku to Sango, then approached her.

"Are you a relative of the boy?"

She shook her head.

"Close friend."

"Do you know any family members we could contact? Legal guardian?"

"No. I'm sorry. I don't know anything."

"And you're how close of a friend?"

"He got hurt saving my life."

"Oh."

The orderly suddenly felt uncomfortable under the girl's stare. He coughed, and backed out of the room, leaving the two alone.

Sango watched him go, then looked back at Miroku. He was paler than he should be, and his breathing was shallow.

"You wouldn't die from this, would you? They're just bugs, right?"

But Miroku said nothing.

See, if this were a disney movie, it would be no good, because right now Miroku would wake up and grin, signifying that all was right in the world. Sesshoumaru would see through Naraku and return to his family, who would adopt Miroku, and they would all live happily ever after. Except Naraku, who would probably be killed, humanely, in an accident.

Nice story, way too predictable.

This is not a story written by Disney. It is a story written by me. And I think we all know exactly how many qualms I have about killing people, and that is none. So I shall tell you right now, that people are going to die, next chapter.

Guess who's gonna die, if you're right you get your name on the great Wall of People who Guessed Right!


	10. Revenge

Neeeeeeew CHAPPIE!

Sorry this has been taking so long. I just finished another fanfiction of mine, The First Rin, which leveled off at an even 30 pages (I'm so proud of myself) Anyway, that will be uploaded one chapter every day for the next week. It's pretty decent, if I do say so myself.

(The promised and infamous) Wall of people who guessed right:

Nobody. O-O

Well, at least I'm not predictable.

(People start throwing stuff at me. GET ON WITH IT!)

Okay, okay, sheesh.

Naraku stood in the street, once again clad in his white fur, looking at a simple modern house. The lights were out, but he was not fooled. There were people here, people on whom he would exact his revenge.

"You may be wondering as to why I have remained dormant so long," he said, watching the house intently.

"No, actually," said the teenager beside him. His head still hurt and he wanted to go sit down somewhere. "Not at all."

"Long ago, I was bound to a black crystal, and buried in the ground, where I was imprisoned for over four hundred years. Very recently the stone was dug up and shattered, releasing me once again. When I found that the hundredth moon was approaching, I decided to lie low until I could find your father."

"Great, fine, can you get your little revenge done with so we can GO?"

"In searching for your father, I came across an interesting name. It rang a faint bell and for the life of me I couldn't figure out where I had heard it from."

"These people?"

"Correct. They are the descendants of the village that bound me to the black crystal."

"Don't you think perhaps your vengeance is a little misdirected?"

'You forget," Naraku said, his eyes never straying from the darkened windows of the house, "I am from the feudal era, where such a thing is completely acceptable.

"Yes yes how silly of me, now let's MOVE."

For an instant Naraku's eyes flicked over to the boy.

"'We' nothing, you stay here."

"OKAY!"

Prompted by Sesshoumaru's murderous glare, Naraku strode toward the house. The front door was built to keep out drafts and human, not murderous hanyou, and for this reason it provided little resistance.

With just the tiniest bit of guilt Sesshoumaru waited, in the stereotypical arms-crossed I-don't-want-to-be-here teenager stance, for Naraku to come out. After five minutes of crashes coming from inside the house, each one jarring painfully inside his head, he decided hell with it and went in.

"What. the. hell. are. you. DOING. in. here?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"One moment, almost done."

Sesshoumaru pressed the palm of one hand into a wall, burning the print on a wooden surface for the second time that day.

"Next time that's your face."

"Testy today, aren't we?"

"Dammit!"

"Okay, okay, geez."

"Are they even here?"

"Oh yeah. They're dead, I was just looking for some lighter fluid."

Sesshoumaru clenched his fists, and walked stiffly out of the house. Naraku followed, thinking maybe he shouldn't bait the daiyoukai so much.

"So how do we get to Japan? Somehow I don't think we'll be getting on a plane."

"You're right there, however, I was planning to ask you the same question."

"Arrgh... why?"

"Well even I can transport myself. Can't you? Fly or disappear and reappear or something."

"... kinda."

"How kinda?"

"I don't know how long I can keep it up."

"Oh, well you're gonna figure it out fast, aren't you."

It wasn't a question.

"Fine. Come on, let's go."

Miroku opened his eyes and stared at something that was definitely not a tree. Nor was it the sky. These, he reasoned, were the things he should be seeing, because they were the things he had been seeing before he closed his eyes.

No, what he was looking at had neither the nice blue of the sky nor the edges and shapes of a tree. It had, actually, nothing at all, but a flat white.

So it must be a ceiling.

This, he felt, he could deal with, because ceilings were familiar ground. All eh had to do was widen his vision to include the walls surrounding the ceiling. After several minutes of unsuccessfully trying to make his eyes bigger, e settled for sitting up and looking around.

The walls were the same plain white as the ceiling. There were a few plastic chairs and sleeping in one of them, in a very painful looking position, was Sango.

"Sango!"

He would have gotten off the bed and gone over to her, but there was the pesky problem of the five or so needles stuck in his arms. They were feeding various liquids into his system, none of which, he hoped, were radioactive, because now, he felt, was not an opportune time to have his DNA altered.

"Sango!"

She sat up, her eyes going wide.

"Miroku?"

"Yes, actually. I think."

"You're okay!"

She practically jumped across the room to the side of his bed.

"I thought you were going to die!"

"Why?"

"You sucked up those... whatever they were, and they poisoned you, and I had to get you out of the woods-"

A lot of memories hit him really fast, with a sensation not unlike being dumped into a pool of cold water.

"Are you okay?"

"Me? I'm not the one who got poisoned!"

"But he was coming after you! And I didn't have any way to help you but to open the windtunnel, and I was scared I would pull you in and-"

"Well you didn't, everything's cool."

"What happened to Sesshoumaru?"

"Uh... he was knocked out, I think. I totally forgot about him, actually. I was so worried about you!"

"I appreciate that."

A nurse came in then, saw that Miroku was awake, and ushered Sango forcibly out of the room to make way for a small army of medical assistants, which Sango thought was a little unfair, because she was the one who had been keeping watch for the last hour, not them. Deprived of anything to do, she decided to call her parents, and tell them that Miroku was gonna be okay.

She twirled the cord around her fingers as the phone rang once, twice, three times, four.

"That's weird. They should have picked up by now."

The answering machine picked up her father's voice cheerily telling her that they were not available at the moment, please leave a message after the beep. There was a brief pause, then the sound of the receiver hitting the floor. Sango giggled. Her dad was a mechanical idiot. On the tape, her father growled, audibly picked up the phone and slammed it onto the hook. BEEP.

"Hi dad, hi mom, anybody there? It's Sango. I'm just calling you to tell you that Miroku woke up, he's going to be okay. So I'll keep calling back till you get home, okay? Bye!"

As she hung up the phone, she shivered.

"Goose walked over my grave," she murmured, but she had a horrible feeling it was something much much more.

For those of you who were wondering what was going on back at the Inu residence, the answer is: Not much. Sesshoumaru's absence had been noted, but not for the first time, and it was mostly shook off. He could take care of himself, they reasoned. If he wanted to be found he would come back, and if he didn't there was no use looking. It was the way he was, the way he had always been. Inuyasha had fallen asleep on the living room floor, having slept little the night before. Jaken was planning to sneak out of the house and follow wherever Sesshoumaru had gone, Izayoi was drawing, and Inu no Taisho was having a staring contest with a wall. Actually he was thinking, but that's what it looked like he was doing, I swear.

About a mile away from their house, a young man named Takemaru was talking to a group of men, For reasons of his own, he had chosen the men with the guns instead of the ones with crosses. Somehow he felt they were better suited to the end he was trying to meet.

"I know who you're looking for. The man with the white hair."

Half a dozen safeties clicked off as the men, and some women, gathered around him. They had been on a dozen wild goose chases all over town and they were gonna shoot something, dammit.

"I can tell you where they are, where they live, anything you want to know."

"And what do you want back?" Someone asked. They had read, correctly, the look on Takemaru's face.

'They have to be killed. All of them."

The gun wielding crowd gave him a weird look.

"Well, yeah. You think we're gonna let some demons just wander around in our town causing trouble?"

Takemaru grinned.

"Of course not. Of course not."

Okay then! That takes care of that chapter. Next chapter preview: New Character! Doo doo de dumdum dum...

Yeah. So more questions:

1: Guess who the new character will be!

3: Who knows who Takemaru is? Anyone? COME ON! There's gotta be some hellfans out there besides me who know who he is!

So yeah, reveiw now with the answers to get your name on the People Who Got it Right Board!

A lot of thanks to Kia, so this chapter is Dedicated to you! (Claps)


	11. The long chapter where stuff happens

Here it is, the waited for, the sought after, the slightly indecipherable, the one, the only

People: Get on with it!

Castle Anthrax: Get on with it!

French guys: Get on with it!

The slightly longer than I wanted it-

God: GET ON WITH IT!

Okay, okay, sheesh.

(Sorry for the blatant plug. I am ashamed of myself.)

In this chapter, Sesshoumaru and Naraku can fly, and I'm not sure why they can do this, but they can. I've seen it in various parts of the anime, so yeah. Also, Kohaku will not be in this, because I feel that he would be kind of a useless character.

Also, just as a note, I switch scenes from woods to neighborhood pretty fast, and I would like to explain this. In my town there's big blocks with houses around the outside and a lot of woods still left. You can get pretty much wherever you want to go without leaving the woods, not that there are a lot of places to go to.

Anyway, here's the new chapter! With the promised new character, who I had a problem getting in character, I think, (notices everyone has skipped ahead to the story.)

FINE! Be that way!

Wall of people who guessed right: On the new character, nobody. On Takemaru: Dragonfaeriex (That was a lot of info, thank you) Kagedavies. And thank you to rei, I can use that info…

"What on Earth could have done this?" the sergeant asked, trailing her fingers over the hand-shaped burn on the wall. "The fingerprints are intact, it was an actual hand that made this mark."

"The guys are starting to say it was one of those demons," her partner said, surveying the sad scene around the house. The man and woman who had lived there were upstairs, where they had apparently fled when an intruder had burst, literally through, their front door. The coroner was up there now, loading them into body bags. A trip to the hospital was not necessary. Kikyo turned to the younger man.

"You really believe in those things?"

"Yes," he said. "I really really do."

Kikyo was about to ask him if he didn't know something more than he was letting on, but another voice interrupted her.

"Yo! Koga!" a man called from the upper level. "Start checking the closets! A kid lives in this house, and she's not here!"

"Oh great," Kikyo said.

"That's exactly what we need right now, another kid on the loose. First Jaken and then Miroku and now this kid."

Koga shook his head.

"I'll check the basement."

"Yeah…" Kikyo muttered, looking one last time at the mark on the wall.

A blinking light caught her eye. The answering machine had a message on it. Curious, she pressed the playback button. She listened to the music, barely able to believe her luck.

"Koga! Get up here and listen to this!"

"She's not down there," he said, emerging from the stairwell. "But look at this thing. Any idea what it is?"

He held out a circular brown thing. There was a small hole on one side, and a faint buzzing came from inside.

"I don't know. But listen to this."

She hit the playback button again.

"Hi dad, hi mom, anybody there? It's Sango. I'm just calling you to tell you that Miroku woke up, he's going to be okay. So I'll keep calling back till you get home, okay? Bye!"

"I think we can safely assume she isn't in the house?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, let's start checking hospitals," Kikyo said, walking toward the door.

"Why hospitals?"

"Wherever she is, she's with Miroku. Wherever he is, he's hurt bad enough that she wasn't sure if he would live or not. There's a limited number of places they could be."

"Okay. Check the hospitals then."

Even a short three foot drop from a window can seem a considerable feat if your own height is slightly less than that. Jaken wasn't sure if he could perform that feat, and for this reason, he chose to go out the front door instead. Nobody noticed.

In his hat and children's clothes, he could have passed as a human. He hoped his disguise was good enough, particularly when he passed a good sized group of gun-weilding people.

But he didn't care about them, he had to find Sesshoumaru. But where could he have gone?

Knowing Sesshoumaru, chances were, he wasn't laying low anymore.

"I just have to wait for an explosion," Jaken thought.

As it happened, he didn't have to wait for any such thing, because right about then, a very familiar figure appeared over the treetops, followed by another, slightly less familiar one.

"Well that's new."

"Hey, that's Jaken!"

"Who, the kid?"

"He's not a kid, he's just really really short."

"Fine, whatever, I thought you were in a hurry."

The figure on the ground jumped up and down, waving his arms.

"Wait a minute."

Sesshoumaru dropped down to ground level, Jaken running toward him.

"Dude, when'd you learn to fly?"

"It's not flying, it's kind of a…" he trailed off. "Ten minutes ago."

"Sweet. Look, you gotta help me. I can't stay out here much longer or somebody's gonna find me. I can't go home and there's no way I'm staying at your house."

"Well we're going to Japan. You can come, I guess."

"Who's we?"

"This other youkai and I. Naraku."

"Where'd you find him?"

"I'll tell you some other time, okay? Come on."

The secretary searched through the various papers on her desk, then turned to the two officers.

"Sorry, no one here by the name of Miroku."

The two of then sighed. SO many hospitals, so little time.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Koga said, tipping his hat.

"So much for that," Kikyo said, turning to leave.

"Wait a minute. There's a boy in the third floor. He can in unconscious in critical condition, so far we haven't tracked down name or relatives. Could he be the one?"

Kikyo and Koga shared a look.

"Third floor, you said?"

"Yeah, room 348."

"346… 347…348. Here we go."

"Kikyo pushed open the door, revealing a plain white hospital room, like pretty much any other. On the bed was a boy, and by his side a girl, a little older than he. There was no one else.

"Are you guys Sango and Miroku?" Koga asked bluntly. Sango sat up, looking at the two of them.

"Why?"

"Yes or no, miss."

"Yes."

"Two down," Kikyo muttered.

"What does that mean?"

"There's been a slew of missing child reports today," Koga explained. "starting with a boy called Jaken, then after the (quite impressive) explosion at Miroku's house a neighbor reported him missing, and then when we were at your house, you obviously weren't there, so we had to look for you."

Kikyo addressed Miroku.

"DO you know what happened at your house, about the explosion?"

"Yes. I know my father's dead."

"Your mother?"

"Died a long time ago."

"Anyone else we should look for?"

"No, it's just me left now."

"Sango, do you know what happened at your house?"

"No. I called an hour ago and everything was fine."

"Thank you," Koga interrupted, writing something down. "That narrows down the time frame a lot. What time was it when you called the second time?"

"How do you know about all of this?"

Kikyo glared at Koga, the least gentle of the two.

"A neighbor noticed the door broken in and called us."

"Are my parents okay?"

"… no. They're dead. I'm sorry."

Sango's eyes filled with tears. Miroku put a hand on her shoulder. He didn't know exactly what she was going through, but he had at least an idea of the pain.

"Do you know who did it? Did anybody see their killer?"

"Nobody, which is amazing, considering the amount of damage," Koga told her. "The house was completely wrecked."

"We do have a few clues. There was a hand print burned onto a wall."

Miroku's eyes widened.

"Sesshoumaru!"

"What? What does he have to do with this?" Sango asked.

"I saw him do that at the bottom of that tree! He burned his hand print right into it!"

"So he killed my parents? But why?"

"How should I know?"

Sango turned back to the two adults, who were looking a bit confused.

"You said you have a few clues. what other than that?"

"We found this," Koga said, drawing out the round hive. It was still buzzing. "He left it in a really obvious place, too, almost like he wanted it to get found."

"Why is it buzzing?" Miroku asked.

"It's not a bomb, don't worry. We checked that possibility out."

"It's definitely not ours," Sango said. "I would remember something that weird looking."

"You still have to tell us," Koga said, "What happened to you two. Why are you here?"

"You want the long story or the short story?" Miroku asked.

"Long, we've got time."

"Fine. The long story would start back about five hundred years ago when a demon whose' name and identity have long been forgotten. He put a curse on my family so that every male child would bear the kazaana on his right hand. The kazaana is a wind tunnel, that, given the chance, will suck in pretty much everything, and it is our fate to be eventually drawn into it ourselves, and be destroyed."

"You sure can talk, for a nine year old," Koga intoned.

"I'm sorry, should I dumb it down for you?"

"That won't be necessary."

"Thank you. Anyway, the explosion you experienced was my father being drawn into this hole, thus passing it onto me. I was slightly out of my mind at watching this, and I was about to go after him, but I was stopped form doing so by a demon named Sesshoumaru."

"Wait a minute," Kikyo said, looking annoyed. "I don't want to hear a fairy tale, I want to hear about what happened today."

"That's what I'm telling you."

"Demon curses?"

"There's been weirder, Kikyo, now be quiet," Koga said.

"thank you. Anyway, I went back with him to his house, where I met his father, another demon, and his little brother, Inuyasha, a half-demon. That's where I got this."

He held up his right hand, displaying the sheath for the kazaana, complete with prayer beads. That's when Sango showed up."

"Through the window, actually."

"You never did explain that."

"See, my family, a long time ago, were demon slayers, and I was trying to uphold the family legacy by slaying the evil demons who had stolen Jaken away."

"You know where Jaken is?"

"I did. He's a demon, too, but not a humanoid one, and when he took on his demon form because of the hundredth full moon-"

"What?" Koga asked, alert.

"Every hundredth full moon all demons revert from their human bodies to their demon ones, and regain their powers."

"Oh. Well that explains a lot."

"Anyway Jaken was a demon, but a short ugly impy kind of one. He was afraid to go back home, because his mother was trying to kill him."

"She failed to mention that."

"I thought she might."

"Anyway, when I got there, I decided to go for the youngest demon first, that would be Inuyasha, so I went in through the window for surprise, but instead I got tackled by Sesshoumaru. He was scary, I tell you. I told them why I was there, Sesshoumaru got mad at me, burned my wrists, and stormed off."

She displayed her wrists as proof. the hand prints were still there.

"After that I decided to go home. I had snuck out, so I didn't want my parents worrying. But I had some stuff to think over, so I went to my thinking tree. I think I fell asleep in the branches, but the next thing I knew Sesshoumaru was climbing up the tree after me, and Miroku opened the wind tunnel to try to get him off."

"That's when these weird bugs came out of nowhere and went right into it. They poisoned me, and I ended up here."

"I carried him out of the woods and called an ambulance."

"And what happened to Sesshoumaru?"

"He got pulled off the tree, but I ducked and he went right over my head and slammed into another tree."

"That's the last place we saw him."

The officers exchanged a glance.

"Sango, can you take us back to this place?"

"Yeah. Miroku, will you be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Watch out for him. He's youkai, you know."

"I know."

With that, the three of them left.

Takemaru looked around at the gathered crowd. They had spread out, surrounding the whole house. A broken window had been discovered in the back, away from the house, raising many questions. He almost laughed at the gullibility of the men around him, but kept it to himself, for now. It could wait.

"The demons will be inside. We'll burn them out and kill any demon that tries to get past!"

The men had roared with approval, willing to follow any leader with some kind of plan.

Fools.

He waved his right arm, and the assault began. Smoke began to rise from the sides of the building. Just a matter of time, now.

Inuyasha awoke to find an acrid smell in the air and his mother shaking him.

"Mommy? What's that smell?"

"Shh, it's okay. We're going to leave not, really quietly, okay? Don't cry and don't say a word, okay?"

"Okay," he whispered back.

Inu no Taisho, meanwhile, was rummaging in the basement for something that might help. The walls were still far from burned through, he had plenty of time. Grinning, he pulled the third sword from it's place, feeling it's evil power once again. There was a reason he kept it in the basement.

The smell of burning insulation filled the house, and he felt himself wishing for the simple burn-outs of the past.

He rushed back up the stairs to find Izayoi and Inuyasha, who was making a valiant effort to be quiet.

"When you hear the crashes, take Inuyasha and run for it. You have to make it, understand?"

Izayoi nodded.

"You'll be okay?"

"I always have in the past."

"But isn't there some other way?"

"It's either kill them or distract them. I'm telling you, I'll be okay."

Izayoi nodded.

"Come on Inuyasha…"

As the two of them hurried to the back door, where the smell was even stronger, and waited.

Outside, Takemaru waited for something to happen. Youkai were not like humans. they didn't smell smoke and go blindly rushing out away from it. No, when the youkai were killed, they would take down a good many humans, as well.

He was willing to make that sacrifice.

Watching the flames on the walls reach the roof, he waited.

Not long now.

Inu no Taisho held the last sword in his hands. The sou'unga, the last fang.

Time to use it.

Pure evil radiated from the sword, and it took everything the youkai had to keep it under control. As he watched, dragon made of nothing but energy wormed it's way out of the sword. He pointed it outwards.

The dragon attacked.

Takemaru actually felt the sound waves reverberating as the front of the house was blown away.

And that's when everything fell apart.

He had overestimated the men he had, and a good number of them, realizing the peril they were in, fled. The ones that were left rushed to the front of the house, to see what had happened, leaving the back completely exposed.

The plaster dust began to clear, and the handful of men left waited for a figure to appear. Something did appear, but it wasn't the youkai they had been expecting, but a dragon. It hissed, and lunged at them, it's body taking all the bullets they could shoot. Before Takemaru could even blink three of them had fallen.

The dragon retreated. This was his chance. Pulling the old monk's spell scrolls out, he rushed into the dust. He couldn't see exactly what was happening, but he could make out, at least the figure of a tall youkai. He threw the spell scrolls at the figure and they stuck, just like they were supposed to.

Perfect.

What he hadn't been expecting was the move that followed, namely, Inu no Taisho letting the dragon out of his sword again. With the youkai temporarily weakened, there was nothing to keep the evil energy in check and it flowed outward in a small, but insanely concentrated river.

Izayoi couldn't help but look back at the second crash. She held Inuyasha close to her chest, holding back a scream. The flames around their home had turned black, and the front of it radiated an energy what made her want to shiver. As she watched a wall inside gave away, then another, and the roof came crashing down. The energy dissipated, the flames regained their natural yellow color, and Izayoi turned from the sight. Inuyasha looked back over her shoulder and closed his eyes.

He didn't want to see that.

"What do we do now, Mommy?"

"I… don't know."

Behind them, a twig snapped.

"This is the last place you saw him?"

"Yeah. I was up there, Miroku was here, and Sesshoumaru hit this tree, here."

Sango pointed to the appropriate locations as she talked.

"Look, here's the burn mark," Koga said, pointing to the black mark on the tree. Around it, the bark had withered, turning a dark gray color.

"What is that?"

"Poison."

"Amazing. You may be right about these demons after all. There's no human that could do this."

"So, more about these 'demons,'" Koga said.

That's all I know. Why?"

"No reason."

"Koga, you've never done anything for no reason. What's up."

"It's nothing."

"You are one, aren't you?" Sango asked.

Koga froze.

"What gave you that idea?"

"You can't answer a question with a question, youkai."

'Youkai?"

"The old word for demon, a bit less evil sounding."

"Is she right, Koga?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I've just been feeling really weird all day."

"Do you think you're sick?"

"Not bad weird. Good weird."

"You are sick."

"This conversation is over. Come on, we still have to find Jaken."

"He would probably still be back with Inuyasha's parents. Their house is over there, about a block."

"Come on then."

Izayoi turned slowly, to face whatever had caused the noise. She desperately hoped it was her husband, a but she had the horrible feeling it wasn't.

She was right.

Apparently not all of the men had deserted their leader. One of them still stood there. One of his shoulders was bleeding lightly from some scratch. He'd been hurt, and he hadn't even gotten to shoot anything.

"You one of those demons?"

Izayoi shook her head, trying to use her hand to cover her son's ears. Too late.

"Just him then?"

"No!"

The man raised his gun, grinning as he looked through the scope.

"Lady, that there ain't no kid. It's a monster. Said so on TV. Now just back off, I'll take care of the little guy for you."

"Don't!" Izayoi wrapped her arms around Inuyasha, shielding him with her body.

"Leave him alone, he's done nothing."

"And I'm gonna keep it that way. Don't make me shoot you too."

Inuyasha, crushed by his mother's arms, looked at his hands. His nails had lengthened into wicked points. There was something he could do here.

He knew there was something he could do, something with his claws, they were almost speaking to him. He's felt that once before, the year before. He had fallen off a diving board and his body had told him, swim, and he had. Now, his body was telling him strike, and he did.

His life depended on it.

"What… what the hell… did you do?"

The man looked down at his shirt, shredded by the yellow blades of light that had appeared from nowhere.

"What the hell did you do to me?"

"This… wasn't like this."

Sango surveyed the wreckage. The house was almost completely destroyed, flames licking at what little was left. There were corpses here, too, sliced to ribbons.

"This place… feels… really really awful," Kikyo said. She was right, the jaki was almost overpowering, but she didn't know that any more than she knew the name for the evil residue.

"What could have happened here?"

"Sesshoumaru again?" Koga asked.

"I don't think so. Why would he turn on his own family, or his friend, or his home? No, this was done by more than one person."

"How do you know?" Sango asked.

"Look at the fire. There's no place of origin. The fire was set evenly, at about the same time, all the way around the perimeter of the house. In order for one person to do that, they would have to had to use about a hundred gallons of lighter fluid, or gasoline."

'And there's no smell of it here," Koga finished.

"You can tell that? Sweet."

"Hey! That doesn't prove anything. Gasoline stinks."

"So we're out of leads. Obviously there's no one here. So what now?"

At that moment, a gunshot echoed through the air.

"Where did that come from?" Sango asked, her hands pressed to her ears.

"Somewhere close," Kikyo replied, doing the same.

"That way," Koga said, leading them into the forest.

"And we come upon another dead body," Sango said dispiritedly.

"Koga, go back to the cruiser and report this, let's get some people out here."

"Right."

"What happened to him? I mean, I've never seen anybody actually get shot, but… that doesn't look like a gunshot wound."

"It isn't," Kikyo said. "Don't touch anything, this is a crime scene."

"They look like knife marks."

"Sango!"

"What?"

Sango turned around to see Inuyasha running toward her. He saw Kikyo and stopped dead.

"I didn't mean it!"

"Mean what?"

"I didn't mean it!" Inuyasha said. He was starting to cry now. But he shouldn't cry, Mommy said not to cry, "I'm not a bad demon, don't shoot me too!"

"Wait, who got shot?"

Kikyo moved toward the boy, but he backed up, faster than she could follow.

"Don't shoot me too, I'll be good…"

"Inuyasha, it's okay. She's not going to shoot you," Sango reassured him.

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now, can you tell me what happened here?"

Inuyasha shook his head. Kikyo noticed the ears emerging from the white hair, but was no longer surprised.

"Is there anyone else, who was here? It's very important that we find out what happened to this guy."

"My daddy. He stayed in the house so Mommy and I could run."

"Run from who, Inuyasha?"

"I don't know. Lots of people."

'Those must be the people back at the house,' Kikyo thought. 'They were killed by something… the demon father?'

"What happened to your mother? Did she go back for him?"

"No."

"Inuyasha. It's important. Where's your mother?"

"I didn't mean it…"

"You didn't mean what?"

"He was gonna hurt my mommy and I just… I just…" the hanyou stared at his hands. "I hurt him and eh got mad and shot as us."

Realization dawned on Kikyo's and Sango's face.

"I made him mad and he shot my mommy! I didn't mean it, I didn't mean to, it's not my fault!" Inuyasha cried.

"It's okay. It'll be okay…"

Sango gathered the boy into her arms as Kikyo went back the direction he had come from.

So much pain… death… on one day. Because of the youkai?

Is this what her ancestors had fought?

Maybe they were right after all.

But… maybe…

Sango looked at the hanyou in her arms, sobbing into her shirt.

It wasn't their fault.

Miroku counted the dots on the ceiling, hit four thousand, skipped one, started over. The IVs had long ago been removed and he personally saw no reason for him to remain here. The nurse's excuse had been 'rest.'

Keh.

The constant buzzing from the thing Koga had left behind was starting to really annoy him.

"Shut up," he told it. The thing, sitting innocently on the table beside his bed, did not oblige.

"Shut UP!"

It might have been his imagination, but the noise actually seemed to get louder. He picked it up.

"I'm warning you, thing…"

"Bzzzzzzzzzz"

"YOU ASKED FOR IT!"

He shook it violently. It stopped buzzing.

"Well that was easy."

"Bzzzzzzzzz"

The buzzing, he found, was no longer coming from the hive, but instead from… above him. He slowly looked up.

The same bugs from the forest hovered above him, looking pissed.

"Oh… was that your home? Heh heh… go back!"

He held up the hive, and the bees obligingly flew back into it.

"Well that was easy."

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

"Aw, man..."

He paused.

"Wait a minute…"

These things were definitely not normal. They seemed to understand what he said to them, and, moreover, the had the ability, simply by being around, to render his kazaana useless.

Somebody knew about the kazaana, and, more importantly, a way around it.

Miroku stared at the gently buzzing hive, thinking intently.

It couldn't be Sesshoumaru, he didn't even know he himself was a demon until that morning. And if Sesshoumaru had wanted him dead, he had many chances, which he passed up.

Speaking of passed chances, why had he gone after Sango? Why there? He could have killed her at any time once she left the house, but she had been up in the tree long enough to fall asleep.

And why her parents? Sure, maybe Sesshoumaru had been pissed, but not enough to kill the two innocent people. He wasn't that evil. Not to mention he didn't know where she lived.

There was someone else here, working behind the scenes, pulling some strings.

Whoever they were, they knew about the kazaana and had some kind of grudge against Sango and her family. They would have to be pretty old, because they had obviously not transformed that morning, they knew too much.

His eyes widened.

Old… five hundred years old? Old enough to be the demon who had cursed his family with the kazaana? But that didn't add up. Where had he been for five hundred years? And what did Sango have to do with it?

Too many questions, and he wasn't happy just sitting here and pondering them.

Time to go.

Okay, I really have to end the chapter here. I promised to update yesterday and I didn't (Library closed, sorry) so instead you get his monster of a chapter.

Five orphans in one day in one story, I am ashamed of myself. I really do feel bad about that, but it needed to be done.

For those of you who don't know: Without giving anything away, Takemaru appears in the third movie, and he is the villain who fights Inu no Taisho to the death, in a burning building, so a blatant rip-off there. Just like in the movie, here, Takemaru appears from nowhere, with no apparent motive, and attacks the Inu family. Don't ask me, I don't know.

About Kikyo and Koga, they're about twenty, just cuz writing so many kids was weirding me out. They're a team for no particular reason, just coincidence at the police station, and there is no romance.

Also, I don't know how well I'm writing these characters.

Inuyasha is young, but not a pushover. Sesshoumaru's developed a superioristic attitude, but he's not evil. Also, Rin was going to be in here, but she's kinda... not. Heh.

Okay, enough from me.


	12. The short chapter

I thought of something the other day while I was watching Inuyasha: Extra characters that get killed come in two sizes: Lone traveler and entire village. There is no middle ground.

Anyone else find this interesting?

Also, one characteristic of siamyoushou poison I drew upon for this chapter: It appears, poisons, and then if it doesn't kill Miroku, immediately disappears without a trace.

And just on the topic of noticing stuff, the fluffy's not the only thing that's growing. The Osuwari is gaining strength as well, going from just pushing him over to actually creating hanyou-shaped craters in the ground.

(Disclaimer: I own nothing. I own none of these characters and even if I do I give them to Romiko Takahashi for letting me borrow her nice ones to write fan fiction about.)

Also, this chapter is dedicated to Captain Jack Skellington, who I miss, even if he was a jerk.

"It's getting dark," Sango remarked.

"Do you have anywhere to go?" Kikyo asked.

"No, nowhere."

"They could probably spend the night at the station," Koga interjected.

"Not Inuyasha. He'd probably be met with the same kind of reaction he got from the guys back there."

The four of them sat in the cruiser a few blocks away from what was left of Inuyasha's home. The sun had disappeared below the tree line, and shadows were slowly overtaking everything in sight.

"I don't want to leave him alone," Sango said.

"I guess you could spend the night at my place. It's not much but it's a roof over your head and nobody will look for you there."

"Are you sure?"

Sango thought of her home, ransacked, Inuyasha's burned to the ground, Miroku's, probably wrecked in the explosion of wind.

"I'm sure."

"What about Sesshy? If he comes back he won't know where I am!"

All heads turned to Inuyasha, who had been silent since after his mother's fate had been discovered. He didn't know about his half- brother.

And now was not the time to tell him.

"He'll come to the police station and they'll know where you are," Sango told him. The hanyou sniffed.

"Okay."

"Hey, what about Miroku? Do you think we should tell him?"

"We might as well."

The boy in question was having some trouble convincing a particularly large nurse that he was, indeed, well enough to go.

"We can't let you go without a release form."

"That's okay, give it to me."

"It has to be filled out by a parent or guardian."

"See, I'm kinda short on those at the moment."

"Then you can't leave."

"By short I mean I don't have any, and there's a very small chance of one appearing at any time in the next... ever."

"Then you can't leave."

"EVER!"

"Those are the rules."

Miroku could have sworn the woman was developing a Russian accent, but he was probably just imagining it.

"You're telling me that since no parent can sign that piece of paper there I'm going to be trapped in this hospital forever."

"No."

"Good, because that was really stupid sounding."

"At eighteen you can sign them yourself."

Miroku searched his brain for some kind of relative. He didn't have anybody.

"Gimme that thing," he said, removing the paper from the woman's hand.

"This is just a disclaimer!"

"Yes, that's what it is. If you remove yourself from the hospital before we say you're well enough to go, we're not responsible for anything that happens to you."

"Damn lawyers..."

"I think I can sign that."

The two of them whirled to face the new voice.

It was Kikyo.

"We need this kid for an investigation, and I believe I'm entitled to sign for temporary custody in such a case?"

"Um... yeah... I guess."

The nurse handed over the pencil, and Kikyo scribbled out an illegible signature.

"Thanks so much."

Five minutes later they were gone.

For those of you who were wondering what Jaken, Sesshoumaru, and Naraku were up to, the answer is: Not much.

They weren't moving very fast, but at least it was night, so unless they flew across the slightly less than full moon, they wouldn't be seen. Jaken was hanging onto the fluffy for all he was worth. He had given up trying to talk a long time ago, Sesshoumaru didn't respond, or even acknowledge that the smaller youkai had spoken. He was lost in his own little world.

Jaken wondered what he was thinking about. It probably had something to do with the other youkai, Naraku, his name was.

Where had he come from?

How did he fit into this whole mess?

Now wasn't the time to ask. He would probably react the same was Sesshoumaru had, that is, not at all. But there was a look on his face, something like a smugness, that Jaken didn't like at all.

Not at all.

Sesshoumaru was thinking about his family, how his father had given up infinite power to be with a human. This, he felt, was an immensely stupid decision, so why had his father made it? There had to be a reason.

He thought of Inuyasha and how just the week before the boy had come running to him with some treasure he found outside. How the hanyou looked up to him.

He wondered if, maybe, he should have said good-bye.

Naraku was... well, who knows what Naraku was thinking about? Even as he moved silently through the night, the demons within him squirmed and writhed, parting, rejoining, becoming more and more powerful.

There hadn't been many demons in this moon, and the ones that had transformed had been weak, almost to the point where the hanyou had thought he was being deceived. They didn't even begin to fight back as he absorbed them, and their powers, into his own body.

Finding Inu no Taisho had been unexpected, almost as much as finding, so close, the descendants of the demon slayers.

Unexpected, but incredibly helpful.

Inu no Taisho, he knew, wouldn't fall for such a trick, but perhaps he, too, had a descendant who had recently gained their demon powers?

And he did, two to be precise. Naraku had no use for another hanyou, and had left the child alone, particularly when there was another, a daiyoukai, right there.

Naraku's eyes flicked over to Sesshoumaru, who was lost in his own thoughts.

A demon almost as powerful as his father, and as innocent as they come.

All he had to do was wait until the teenager's heart had been darkened, by some means, and then he could absorb him, too.

He would be invincible.

And all he had to do was wait.

"You guys can stay the night here, but tomorrow we have to find someplace for you to go, okay?"

"Okay."

Kikyo wasn't going to dump the three children onto the street, but that didn't mean she was adopting them, either.

The apartment wasn't big. There was a kitchenette, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a common area. The couch folded out, and was actually pretty big. Inuyahsa jumped on it immediately, burying himself in the loose blankets Kikyo conjured from somewhere. She noticed he was still wearing a red kimono, for some reason unknown to her. With a start, she realized that he was even wearing a sword. The handle looked kinda fake, but the sheath looked real enough. Sango, too, had on armor of sorts, made from pink and black kneepads. Miroku was the only one dressed normally, if you discounted the cloth on his right hand.

Weird bunch of kids.

"Okay, it's almost ten o clock and I have work tomorrow, so everybody find somewhere to sleep, okay? 'night."

She retreated into her own bedroom. Inuyasha and Sango split up the bed, and Miroku used another blanket to make a sleeping place on the floor.

"SO what do we do tomorrow?" Inuyasha asked, already half asleep.

Sango and Miroku shared a glance. They knew, better than the hanyou, what kind of trouble they were in. Miroku had told the others the suspicions he had surrounding the buzzing hive, and they had all agreed that something strange was happening.

Even without a potential killer hanging over their heads, they still had problems. Without any kind of legal guardian they'd be sent to foster homes. Who knows what kinds of problems Inuyahsa would come into, he wasn't even human, and while he could defend himself against one attacker, maybe two, he wouldn't last long if anyone found out where he was.

"There has to be somewhere we could go," Sango stated.

"There's other youkai, right? Where are they going to? If we could find one of them, maybe..."

"No, they'd all be holed up, trying to do things secretly, like we are."

"They're going to Japan," Inuyahsa said sleepily.

"Yeah, get parts in Godzilla movies."

"What about Sesshoumaru? Wherever he is, I bet he's looking for us. And that other guy. Miroku, he tried to kill both of us, and I'd be willing to bet he didn't just give up."

"Sesshy's going to Japan," Inuyahsa insisted.

"Why would he do that?"

"Cuz that's where the well is," he continued. That said, he finished his part in the conversation and fell asleep instantly, the way only children and anime characters can.

"Do you have any idea what he's talking about?"

"Nope."

"Might as well think about this in the morning, then, huh."

"Might as well."

But it was still a long time before either of them fell asleep.

You know, the first time I heard that Romiko had hit four hundred chapters and was aiming for five, I thought that it was ridiculous. Adn then when I came here to good old I see these stories that are twenty chapters long and I thought you guys were crazy, who could write a fanfiction that long?

And now, here I am, and I don't know what it is, but something about these characters makes you want to keep writing... and writing... and writing...

That's the sign of a good story, there.

Also, as a side note, I take back everything bad I've ever said about Yu-gi-oh. My sister's a seasoned veteran who got me to play with her, I lost my first game and I've beaten her every time since, and that game is definitely worth the ten bucks I spent on the deck, definitely.

That said, Sesshoumaru would still kick Yugi's ass in a fight any day.


	13. The well

SQUEEEEEEEEE! .

I just finished the third movie... I feel all happy inside. It was funny to watch them fighting all these enemies to discover that they are, in fact, made of toothpaste. I totally recommend it, though, watch all the way through the credits or the ending's not quite as good...

Oh, and just a liberty I have taken: People can go through the well. In the show, I've seen them all now, Shippo's the only person who could not go through the well. Yura's hair went through, as did mistress centipede, and the reason it's called the bone eater's well is because all the bones put into it, disappeared. (Guess where they went?) So yeah, in other news...

My sister has not taken well to being beaten by a newbie. She's memorized EVERY Inuyasha song she could find, in Japanese, and I do mean to the syllable. I'm retaliating by burning them to a CD and listening over and over and over until I can do that too. I'm listening to it, so if I start typing in Japanese... forgive me...

Inuyasha awoke so somebody shaking him.

"I don' wanna get up, mommy..."

He dug deeper under the blankets, seeking refuge in their cover.

"Inuyasha, get up. We need you to tell us about the well."

"S- Sango?"

One golden eye peeked out from under the covers.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Where are we?"

"We're in Kikyo's apartment."

"So I wasn't dreaming?"

"No. Sorry."

Another eye appeared, then his whole face. A tear slid down his cheek, but he wiped it away, trying not to let any more come. Mommy said not to cry, and he wouldn't cry.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'll be okay... I think."

"You said something last night, about a well?"

Inuyahsha nodded.

"Mmm- hmm. The well into the sengoku jidai."

"Sen goku... jidai is... the feudal era?"

"I dunno."

"Why then?"

"I dunno. That's what dad said. The well to the sengoku jidai, where there's all kinds of demons. He said Jaken would probably have to go because there was nowhere else for him to go."

"So... we could go there!"

Inuyahsa looked around.

"Where's Miroku and Kikyo?"

"Oh? They left a while ago. Tehy went to get some donuts and stuff for breakfast."

"Yay! Donuts!"

Actually, Kikyo and Miroku, anticipating an explosion from Inuyahsa woke and remembered about his mother and father, had evacuated the building under that excuse. They had left Sango to wake him up... after they were gone.

Demo, tada kono mama.

"Let me get this straight. We jump in here, and when we climb back out, we're going to be in a different era."

Sesshoumaru crossed his arms and looked skeptically at Naraku. Jaken peered fearfully into the dark well.

"In a nutshell, yes, that's exactly what happens."

Sesshoumaru looked at the well again.

"You go first."

"Sigh. It's sad you have so little trust in me."

"Yeah, save it."

Naraku looked from the well to the teenager and back again. Perhaps he wasn't as naive as he looked. Flicking one of his fingers he pushed Jaken into the well. The little demon screamed all the way down.

"What the hell? What did you do that for?"

"Distrustful people are themselves not to be trusted."

"You sought me out, and not the other way around. You don't have a choice, hanyou."

Naraku stiffened.

"Hanyou?"

"You smell of human, and I don't think you're the type to be spending a lot of time around them, so there's one place that smell could have come from."

"You don't know the half of it, kid."

With that Naraku disappeared down the well. Smirking, Sesshoumaru followed him.

On the other side, there was sunlight streaming through

"Jaken? You up there?"

"Yup, up were with the nut job, waiting for you and OW! What was that for?"

Sesshoumaru jumped out of the well.

"Don't hit him."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not on my shit list and you're quickly getting there. So don't do it, hanyou."

"I do wish you wouldn't call me that."

Sesshoumaru didn't say anything."

"So now what?"

Five hundred years and half a continent away, Miroku, Sango, and Kikyo stared at Inuyasha.

"What do you mean you don't know where it is?"

"Dad never said that. He just said it was a well that lead to a place where we'd be safe. And I'm gonna get there."

"I'll go too," Miroku said. "Maybe there's a way I can find the demon that cursed my family with the kazaana, and stop him then, before he ever got around to doing it."

"I'll go with you," Sango said. "I mean... uh... I've got nowhere else to go, so I might as well."

Miroku turned to her, catching her hands in his own.

"Are you sure? We don't know the dangers that might face us, you could be put into some serious situations."

"I know."

She blushed.

"Well come on then," Kikyo said. "We've got a well to find."

"You're coming too?"

"Well, yeah. You guys are just kids, there's no way I'm letting you go off on your own. I took an oath, you know."

"Just one question... how do we get there?"

(And this is where I will pause and apologize profusely for the next bit, which I totally ripped off. But it was unavoidable, it really was. I have no idea how to get a hanyou, two children, and a young woman to Japan, never mind to a specific place in Japan. Interestingly enough, I also know the Japanese words for demon and half demon but not human. Funny thing, huh?)

Eight hours later (not counting nine hour time difference and 500 year time-jump gap)

"Wow, what an adventure that was," Kikyo said, climbing out of the well.

"I liked when the giant squid launched missiles at us," Sango added as she followed.

Miroku and Inuyasha followed directly after, Miroku pushing Inuyasha over the top before following suit.

"Sesshoumaru's been here!" Inuyasha cried happily, sniffing at the ground. "Jaken too!"

"Jaken?"

"I totally forgot about him."

"Oops."

"They went this way!" Inuyasha said, pointing toward a nearby village, and running off.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Miroku said, following him.

"You said it," Sango agreed. The two of them ran off, leaving Kikyo standing by herself.

"Sesshoumaru, huh? Wonder what he's doing here."

Aaaaaand... CUT! That's a wrap, take five, people. For once I am not ending on that much of a cliffhanger. Sorry for the lack of cliffhanger, but I have no idea at all where to go from here. Ideas, comments, concerns appreciated, even flames are okay, just, please, refrain from insulting me personally, okay? (I've been having some problems with this, or I wouldn't even mention it.)

This chapter dedicated to Tailfluffgirl, for writing Cinderbones. Thumbs up to you, you rock. (Just on the off chance that she would read this)


	14. The delayed Chapter

Thank you to everyone who's gonna put up with this chapter. I'm working off yet ANOTHER computer (converting files is hell. HELL.) And I've got another keyboard to adjust to, like my typing wasn't bad enough already. Plus, this one's all clackety.  
Yes, I do know that Miroku is older than Sango, but here, he's not. To make up for the age mix-up I've made him smart. Live with the compromise.  
Also, new character this chapter, though I think I'm gonna have to knock someone off, because Kikyo and Sango and Miroku and Jaken are all kinda serving the same purpose.  
Apologies to Jhonen Vasquez for the ripoff in the last chapter. I stole the giant squid thing from Invader Zim.  
This chapter dedicated to Piro and Largo from MegaTokyo, the funniest webcomic ever.  
Okay, okay, on to the goddam fic already… geez…

"Miko! Miko, four more youkai have emerged from the well! They're headed toward the forest!"  
The brown eyed temple maiden grabbed her bow, slinging her arrows over her shoulder. What was it with the youkai today? They were coming in the thousands, and her strength was beginning to weaken.  
"How long can this last?" she asked. She feared the answer.

"Are you sure he went this way, Inuyasha?"  
Kikyo tried not to laugh at the sight of the little boy with his nose pressed to the ground.  
"Mm-hmm. Jaken too. Somebody else, but I don't know them."  
"Somebody else?"  
"Who else could there be?" Miroku asked. The other two shrugged.  
"They're really close. They went over… this way!"  
Inuyasha ran off.  
"Hey! Wait up!"

"What are we waiting for, anyway?"  
Sesshoumaru leaned back against a tree, glaring at the older man. Naraku was peacefully sitting cross-legged on the ground, his baboon pelt abandoned. Jaken was wandering around looking for something familiar.  
"I'm not going to ask you to trust me on this one, but you'll just have to wait."  
"That doesn't answer my question."  
"Patience, Sesshoumaru."  
"Exactly what he's good at," Jaken muttered from out of Sesshoumaru's range. The daiyoukai glared at him, but didn't make a move to retaliate.  
Naraku watched all this with an air of removal. All was going according to plan. The siamyoushou had reported that the hanyou had come out of the well, bringing some humans with him. They would be little trouble. Now, assuming Takemaru had done his job properly, all was going according to plan. The hanyou would of course come looking for his elder brother, bearing news of their parent's tragic death.  
Sesshoumaru, following the pattern of human teenagers everywhere, would find someone to blame. His soul would be filed with hate. And then Naraku would be free to absorb the daiyoukai, and all his power.  
If only the stupid child would hurry.

Kagome moved almost silently through the forest. Her arrow's sling was hung over her shoulder, one of them already nocked and held at ready. The youkai could be anywhere, and wherever they were, they were definitely not alone.  
But why so many so suddenly? And why out of the well?  
Too many questions for one day.  
She heard voices to her left and whirled around. Whoever was talking, they didn't know she was there. This could work to her advantage.

"You know, today is Wednesday," Kikyo said absently.  
"So?"  
The four of them were walking along, Inuyasha stopping every once in a while to alter their course. For the most part they were just walking and talking about stuff.  
"I never got the hang of Wednesdays. I could never figure out what to do with them. Now I can't figure out what to do with this. How do you react to something like this?"  
"Roll with it." Miroku suggested.  
"Easy for you to say. You're eight."  
"Still. That's what I'm doing and I havn't had a mental breakdown as of yet, so it must work."  
"Arrgh… stop being smart, you're weirding me out."  
Miroku sighed.  
"Inuyasha," he said, trying to change the subject, "Are we still going the right way?"  
No answer.  
"Inuyasha?" Sango said, looking behind them. "Where did he go?"  
"Did he run off?"  
"He shouldn't be hard to see, with al that red he wears."  
"Wait a minute, I hear someone," Miroku said, looking in the direction they had just been heading.  
"Come on!" Kikyo ran off in the direction of the voices. The other two followed her.  
"Don't follow them," Kagome hissed.  
Inuyasha, transfixed by the arrow tip a few feet in front of him, nodded.  
"I'm gonna ask some questions, youkai. If you try to transform, run off, or attack me, I'll shoot you. Got it?"  
Inuyasha nodded.  
"I'm not a youkai."  
"You've got dog ears, kid. I'm not stupid."  
Inuyasha shook his head without moving anything else.  
"No, mommy said I was a hanyou."  
"Your mother's a youkai then?"  
"My dad."  
"Where's he?"  
She knew the answer, he was off somewhere, looking for her. Tables turn, youkai.  
Inuyasha rubbed one eye, willing himself not to shed a tear.  
"He got killed. My mommy, too."  
Oh, so she'd already got him then. Made her job that much easier.  
"Why did you come through the well?"  
"That's the only way here."  
"Here? From where?"  
"Where I live. The future."  
"And that's where all the other youkai are coming from?"  
"I guess so. I'm only looking for my brother."  
"He's probably already dead," Kagome didn't say.  
"I've been killing off youkai all day," she failed to add.  
Why didn't she want to tell the kid that? He was just a hanyou. She'd kill him once she was done with him, so what did it matter?  
Think about it later.  
"Tell me everything you know."  
"Um… kay… this could take a while."  
Kagome pulled back harder on the arrow, stretching the bowstring even more.  
"I've got all day. Start talking."

Sesshoumaru's amber eyes flicked over to the trees, verifying what his nose was telling him.  
"Somebody's coming," he said.  
"Finally. We've been sitting here for an hour."  
"Quiet, Jaken."  
Kikyo burst into the clearing, followed closely by Miroku and Sango.  
"Sesshoumaru? What are you doing here?" Sango asked.  
"So this is the infamous Sesshoumaru, huh?" Kikyo asked.  
"We've been waiting for THEM?" Sesshoumaru asked incredulously. Naraku, who had conjured the baboon pelt once again, nodded.  
"I don't have time for this," Sesshoumaru said, standing to go.  
"Hey, wait!" Sango said, "Have you seen Inuyasha anywhere? We can't find him, and since he was looking for you-"  
"Why would the hanyou be looking for me?"  
"You're his older brother, duh," Kikyo said. "Without his mother or father, you're the only person he has le-"  
"Wait. What do you mean, without his mother or father?"  
The three humans stiffened, sharing a nervous glance.  
"He doesn't know," Sango whispered.  
"Somebody better start talking or there's gonna be trouble," Sesshoumaru hissed. A single drop of poison dropped from his claws, burning a plant on the ground.  
"There was a mob of humans," Sango said hurriedly. "There was no one at your house but Inuyasha and your parents, and they lit the walls on fire-"  
"Bullshit. There's no way my dad couldn't get away from a bunch of humans."  
"We weren't there. From what we heard from Inuyasha, he stayed to distract the humans away from where Inuyasha and his mother were getting away."  
Two more drops fell as Sesshoumaru's hands dropped.  
"The burning house collapsed, killing your father and the humans he was fighting. Your mother was killed later-"  
"She's not my mother."  
"Why would you assume that Sesshoumaru-sama would be related to a human?" Jaken interjected.  
Naraku, still receding into the shadows, allowed a small smile to grace his lips. Takemaru had come through quite nicely indeed. The first shadows of darkness were creeping into Sesshoumaru's previously pure aura.  
"Hate," he whispered, encouraging the boy.  
"So my father died," Sesshoumaru said slowly, "trying to protect his human woman and her half-breed kid?"  
He gave up… power, everything he could have been, to pretend to be a human, to live… then, with her, with Inuyasha. He died for them.  
"He died for Inuyasha," Naraku whispered, "the half breed as good as killed him. Return the favor. Kill him. Get the revenge you deserve."  
"Where is he?" Sesshoumaru hissed.  
"That's what we were asking you. We can't find him."  
Sesshoumaru turned to leave.  
"Wait," Miroku said. It was not a request. Sesshoumaru turned back, slowly, looking quizzically at the little kid who thought he could order around youkai. Miroku had his right arm extended, the palm covered by prayer beads and a thin layer of cloth.  
"Oh, shit, not that thing," he gasped, remembering.  
"Miroku, look out!" Sango exclaimed, pointing to the sky. Half a dozen siamyoushou hovered there, waiting for their suicidal mission.  
"That means… whoever's behind all this is around here somewhere!"  
They noticed Naraku for the first time.  
"... how long has he been there?" Kikyo asked, a little freaked out by Naraku's choice of attire.  
"So these things are yours," Miroku said, "Meaning you are the demon who cursed my ancestors with this kazaana, probably right about now, if I'm right about what era we're in. What I can't figure out is why you're here now."  
"He came to find me," Sesshoumaru cut in. "Any more than that is no business of yours. Ditto for my half-brother. Go back to your own time, leave this to the people qualified to deal with it, humans."  
"I can't do that, see, it's been my job, along with my father's and his before him to find this demon here and kill him, and I won't back down from that because of you."  
Naraku frowned. This was an unexpected development. He tried to see whether the boy would open the kazaana despite the immenent danger, but his face revealed nothing at all. Impressive, for a child so young.  
Impressive, but dangerous.  
"I don't have time for this. I'm going to find that baka of a half breed."  
He spared half a glance for Naraku.  
"When they're dead catch up to me."  
Naraku nodded, resenting having to take orders from someone a tenth of his age.

"That's why my friends and I are here. I just want to find Sesshy."  
Kagome was having a hard time keeping the arrow knocked. What if he was telling the truth? He was innocent, even if he was a hanyou. What if he wasn't?  
It was hard not to believe the golden eyes child's story.  
'damn my maternal instincts,' Kagome thought.  
"Look, I'm sorry," she told him, "but it's my job to get rid of youkai, and you fall under that category."  
Before Inuyasha could even understand what she had said to him, she released the arrow, sending it on it's deadly path. Something white flashed between her and the hanyou, and her arrow was gone.  
"Huh?"  
She followed the path of the white flash, here eyes leading her to the figure of a boy, dressed in a white and red kimono, holding her arrow between two claws. He had the markings of a youkai on his face.  
"Sesshy!" Inuyasha called out. "We've been looking everywhere for you!"  
Sesshoumaru flicked his claws, sending the arrow back at Kagome with alarming speed. It buried itself in her shoulder, drawing a ragged gasp from the miko as she sunk to the ground.  
"Sesshy, what did you do that-"  
Sesshoumaru moved again, covering the distance between him and his brother in a second. He picked Inuyasha up by the front of his shirt, slamming the boy into a tree.  
"It's your fault!" he screamed. Inuyasha regarded him without the smallest bit of comprehension, which only angered him more.  
"You don't know? Or you don't care? Do you even think you've done anything wrong?"  
Inuyasha couldn't breathe, the pressure on his chest was too much. Panic showed on his face, strengthened by the pure hate in his brother's eyes.  
Hate turned to surprise, and Sesshoumaru dropped the boy. Inuyasha fell to the ground, gasping for air. Kagome drew another arrow.  
"This one will go through your heart, youkai," she promised.

Naraku could feel, even through the distance, the darkness in Sesshoumaru's aura. He'd have to move soon, this was his chance. For all his flaws, Sesshoumaru wasn't an evil person, and soon after he killed his brother a lot of guilt would set in. The darkness would evaporate and probably never come back. Guilty people had an affinity for making vows never to kill again.  
He left the siamyoushou to deal with the humans and set off after Sesshoumaru.  
An interesting scene greeted him. Inuyasha was alive, Sesshoumaru having been distracted by a miko, another character that seemed to appear out of the woodwork. She was about to shoot a purification arrow, which didn't work for Naraku. The daiyoukai's power was nothing if the boy was dead.  
"Look out!" Inuyasha cried. Kagome followed his finger to where a second youkai had appeared. Kagome shifted her aim, instead shooting at the fur-clad man. He disappeared, appearing once again behind Sesshoumaru. He wrapped his arms around the boy and the two of them disappeared.  
'I'm not gonna ask,' Kagome thought. 'I don't care, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm not-'  
"Are you okay?"  
Inuyasha nodded.  
"What's wrong with him?"  
"Who?"  
"Sesshoumaru."  
"That was your brother?"  
"He isn't like that though."  
"He's a youkai. They're all 'like that.' Has he been hurt recently?"  
"I don't think so. Why?"  
"He's not using half the power he's capable of. I shouldn't have stood a chance, but I did. Why?"  
"He's only been youkai for a day."  
"A DAY? How is that possible?"  
"It's the hundredth full moon in our time. I think. I'm not really sure."  
"That explains it."  
Kagome stared at the ground, lost temporarily in thought.  
"I have to go find my friends, okay? See ya!"  
Kagome watched the hanyou run off.  
I shouldn't let him go.  
Youkai and hanyou, they're all alike.  
Well… maybe one won't hurt.  
Sure she'd regret it, Kagome let the boy go.

"Get off me! Bastard, let GO!"  
Sesshoumaru fought against Naraku. The hanyou's arms had devolved into more like tentacles, wrapping around Sesshoumaru. Naraku would absorb his body, and therefore his power, and become almost unstoppable. But Sesshoumaru wasn't going to go without a fight. He dug his claws into Naraku, the poison spreading quickly. The hanyou let go of him for only a second, but it gave Sesshoumaru the chance he needed. He spun around, a trail of poison energy emerging from his fingertips, whipping out and slicing a line right through Naraku. The hanyou disappeared once again, leaving Sesshoumaru alone.  
"Where the hell even am I?" He asked no one in particular. When they didn't answer, he went off in search of his own answers.  
Again.

Yeah, that was long. You are grateful, are you not?  
Irony: While I was writing Naraku, I was listening to Was (Not was), their song 'betrayal's just a game.' I likes it, I do. So yeah.  
School's starting and I'm getting set back to 4.5 hours of computer a week, so updates will probably continue to be slow. Also, August 31st is my fifteenth birthday, which I will spend jumping in and out of wells, so probably nothing then, either.  
Karvian and Kitsune Ryune get their names on the board of people who got it right.  
For this chapter's question: What's the shichinintai?  
Or, if you don't know that, what's the literal translation of siamyoushou?  
Review for your chance to get a chapter dedicated to you!

I'm upset cuz I finished my other Inuyasha fics and they got, like, three reviews… there's too much of a turnover rate here.

"Lady Kagome! You're hurt!"  
Blood ran down Kagome's arm, dripping from her fingertips to the ground.  
"It's not that bad. I'll be okay."  
Once the arrow had been removed, she was able to examine the wound. It should be healed up in a few days.  
'for such a powerful youkai,' she thought, 'he sure did have poor aim. It's almost like he aimed that way on purpose…'  
No way. No youkai is that kind.  
Her mind flicked briefly back to the white haired hanyou, the pure innocence she had seen in his eyes. Had that youkai been his brother?  
She shook her head, trying to clear out her thoughts.  
In any case, there had to be some other youkai who had come after the jewel. Fighting them was a straightforward battle.  
Perfect.

"Inuyasha! Where on Earth have you been?"  
The three humans gathered around Inuyasha. He didn't say anything, and didn't look as if he was going to.

I dedicate this chapter to anybody who clicks on the author profile button. I've got like 50 stories, there should be something you like…


	15. Orange Boy

I'm upset cuz I finished my other Inuyasha fics and they got, like, three reviews… there's too much of a turnover rate here.

Oh, in response to somebody's review (I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up.) yes, Sango's pretty annoying. Then again, she's kinda annoying in the anime, too. She's only there, I think, to keep Miroku's thoughts off Kagome. That, and just in case Inuyasha angsting over Kikyo isn't bad enough, she can angst over Kohaku or her village, and so keep the angst-meter up.

"Lady Kagome! You're hurt!"

Blood ran down Kagome's arm, dripping from her fingertips to the ground.

"It's not that bad. I'll be okay."

Once the arrow had been removed, she was able to examine the wound. It should be healed up in a few days.

'for such a powerful youkai,' she thought, 'he sure did have poor aim. It's almost like he aimed that way on purpose…'

No way. No youkai is that kind.

Her mind flicked briefly back to the white haired hanyou, the pure innocence she had seen in his eyes. Had that youkai been his brother?

She shook her head, trying to clear out her thoughts.

In any case, there had to be some other youkai who had come after the jewel. Fighting them was a straightforward battle.

Perfect.

Inuyasha followed his friend's trails to find them in a bit of a bind. The saimyoushou were doing their jobs well. They were bigger than yellow jackets, but had the same basic purpose: to sting everything in sight. The three humans were doing their best to fight them off, but there were a lot of the little things. One of them noticed the hanyou and changed course. It's stinger dripped with poison, and a single amber drop of it dropped to the ground.

Inuyasha slashed it to pieces as it flew at him, yellow blades of energy flying from his claws. He took down several more the same way.

Suddenly, the saimyoushou froze, seeming to die in the air. The dropped to the ground, dissolving into dust before they hit the ground.

"Well, that's probably the weirdest thing I've seen today," Miroku said honestly. The other three gave him weird looks. He had a strange idea of weird.

"Hey, Inuyasha, you're back. When did that happen?"

"A minute ago."

"We found Sesshoumaru, he went to go find you."

"So you should probably stick close to us for a while," Kikyo finished.

"Where'd you go?"

"A lady made me stay. She wanted to know about the youkai."

"Huh? In the woods?"

"Mm-hmm. She looked like you," Inuyasha said, pointing at Kikyo.

"Me?"

The hanyou nodded again.

"That's really…" Sango didn't want to use the word weird, it was getting used way too often lately.

"We found Sesshoumaru," Miroku said again.

"Me too. Or he found me. He grabbed an arrow right out of the air. It was so cool!"

"An arrow?"

"Yeah, the lady who looked like you was gonna hit me with it but Sesshie came out of nowhere and grabbed it!"

(This was accompaniewd by the sort of theatrics you can generally expect from six year olds.)

"But then he threw it back," Inuyasha said, his face falling. "He hit her in the shoulder. That wasn't really nice."

"Where'd he go after that?" Sango wanted to know.

"I dunno. Somebody else showed up and the two of them vanished."

"He must be the same guy who cursed by ancestors."

"And who mine sealed."

"This is way too freaky for me. You kids have fun fighting superdemons, I think I'm gonna go home."

"Kikyo… won't you stay with us?"

Inuyahsa turned a patented cute face on the older woman, who tried her very hardest to ignore it.

"I can't stay here. There's so much I can handle, and evil demon creatures is just thiiis far over the line."

She held her finger's a hair's breath apart, to show how far over the line these things were.

"Okay…"

"I think the well was back... this way?"

"Yeah," Miroku said absently. He was watching the dusty remaints of one of the bees very closely. After it made no attempts to move or kill him, he pocked it with a stick.

"They all died at the same time," he said, puzzled. "Why would they do that?"

"Whoever had the hive under his possession must have died."

"But that was the demon that was with Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha said. "Sango, if your whole family could only bind him, then who could have killed him?"

"I don't know. But somebody around here should."

"There it is. The well." Kikyo grinned. In ten seconds she would be back home,and she could forget this whole thing ever happened. It was her job to protect Americans. Human Americans. In America. Preferably sometime after the second world war. Feudal Japan, she could do without.

She grinned at the well, and moved forward.

"Look out!"

Something big and orange slammed into her, pushing her out of the way of a large ball of green fire. She hit the ground hard, the orange thing landing rather painfully on top of her.

"Oww…" she moaned, rubbing her head.

"Are you okay?"

She looked up at Orange Thing, to find that it had green eyes. Kinda nice green eyes.

"What's wrong, you paralyzed from the neck up? I said are you hurt."

"No… but that's gonna leave a mark," she said, gingerly feeling the back of her head.

"Well so long as you're alive."

Orange Thing was decidedly male, and he was taking his own sweet time getting off her.

"What was that stuff?"

She pushed Orange Boy off her, (which he wasn't expecting, judging by the fact that he fell over,) and looked back at the green fire. It had mostly dissappated, only a few lone flames danced around-

"The well!"

The wood planks around it burned with the heatless fire.

"Ohnoohnoohnoohno"Kikyo jumped at it, going straight through the flames.

"I wouldn't do that if I were" Orange Boy started, but Kikyo was gone.

Waving a hand, he put the flames out and peered into the well. Sitting at the bottom and looking dejected was Kikyo.

"What did you have to go do that for?" he asked her. She only looked up at him sadly.

"It doesn't work."

Dumdumdillydumdumdum.

Well, than you Karvian, for helping me move this story along a bit. More people should be like you. Thank you Kitsune Ryune, for always knowing the answers to my questions, you're on the board like, fifty times. I've stopped counting.

Questions for this chapter:

1. Who's Orange Boy (all of you should get this)

2. There's a quote in this chapter, who can tell me what it is?

3. Demo, tada kona mama.

I used this a while back, what's it mean?

I dedicate this chapter to Inukid. Your wish is my command.

I'm also having a 'longest review ever' contest. I wanna see how much room you can fill up with, I don't care, anything.

There's this online help thingie and I'm always sending them rants about how I hate my little sister. It accomplishes nothing, but at least I have someone to rant to. So yeah, something like that.


	16. Kagura

I'M BACK ONLINE! BOOYAH!

This chappie dedicated to Tim Eyerdom, for reasons you shall never know.

"It doesn't work. I'm still here!"

"Well yeah. What were you expecting?"

Kikyo began digging franticly into the dirt.

"It's gotta open, it's gotta it's gotta!"

The kitsune above her sighed, rolling his eyes. Fluidly he dropped into the well beside her, his feet landing on solid dirt.

"Look, I'm not sure exactly what it is that you're expecting to happen, but I don't think it's gonna happen any time soon."

"WHY NOT?"

"The magical energies in the area just got really messed up, by the green fire. It'll take at least a few days for this thing to start working again. In the meantime…" he leaned against a wall, grinning at the woman on the ground. "I know where you can crash for a while."

"Okay, I am so not in the mood for this right now."

"Suit yourself."

The orange –haired kitsune shrugged, and jumped about twenty feet in the air, out of the well. Kikyo glared at the dark silhouette as he peered back down at her.

"Show off."

"Yeah, I know."

Kikyo, determined not to let him see she was in trouble, made a valiant effort to climb up the vines crawling down the side if the well.

The fifth vine snapped in so many minutes, sending Kikyo once again to the ground. Above her, the kitsune continued to look on with a kind of amused pity.

"Are you sure you don't need help? You could be long gone by now."

"I could be long gone by now if it weren't for that stupid fire."

Unnoticed by the human, the kitsune frowned. He had himself created the ball of foxfire. It was a trick he used quite often; the ladies love a hero. This time, though, he seemed to have really messed something up for this girl. Or she may just be insane, jumping into wells and such like that.

You never know.

Another vine broke. There weren't many more left. Kikyo tried to find a fingerhold somewhere that she could use to climb the wall. No such luck. With an almost humorous amount of regret, she looked up at the black silhouette above her. She couldn't tell, but it was grinning wolfishly.

"Fine, maybe I could use the help."

"I thought you might say that," he said, dropping down beside her. He sank to one knee. "Get on."

"What? I thought you were going to throw me a rope or something."

"This is faster. Get on."

With a normal amount of hesitation, Kikyo wrapped her arms around his neck. He stood up, holding onto her legs.

"Got a good grip?" he asked, turning his head so his face was but an inch from Kikyo's. She nodded.

"Cool. Here we go."

Kikyo didn't scream as they shot upward, out of the well. Shippo was glad. Sometimes the girls screamed, and seeing as their mouths were only a few inches from his ears, it wasn't overly pleasant for him.

When they hit the ground outside the well Kikyo started to let go, and the kitsune compensated by tightening his grip on her as he jumped upward again.

"Wait, where are you taking me? Where are you going?"

He didn't answer as he landed on a tree branch and jumped again, nimbly moving from one tree to another. Kikyo still didn't scream.

"You're not from around here, right?" He asked her over his shoulder.

"Gee, how did you guess?"

"So that means you need a place to crash, right?"

"Not from you, I don't!"

"What's wrong with me? Anyway, at least see it before you turn me down. Not like you have much of a choice."

"… fine."

"Cool."

"Did you feel that?"

"Yes."

"What was it? God, I feel all sick inside all of a sudden."

"It was our father returning."

A pair of blood-red eyes widened as Kagura turned on her little sister.

"There's no way Naraku can return, he's sealed inside the crystal, I was there when it happened."

"He is sealed inside the crystal, but he is also free."

"What are you talking about, Kanna? He can't be free and sealed at the same time."

"He can."

"My sister, master of the direct approach."

Kagura pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture of an adult much older than she was. At fourteen, she had seen a lot more than most humans had. Fortunately for the two of them, Naraku had told them about the hundredth moon long before it had happened. This had avoided a lot of confusion and destruction the day before, when they had suddenly gained their youkai powers.

Kanna, as always, was dressed in her simple white dress. She clutched her mother's mirror as she followed dutifully behind her sister. The girl had witnessed the death of her mother through excorcism at a very young age. As a result of this, she didn't talk very much, and her voice was almost completely devoid of sentiment.

These characteristics often put her at odds with her older sister. Kagura had always had more flair, as well as a more rebellious spirit. She dressed in a black gi, with red markings on the shoulders and pant legs. Her belt was red,and tucked into it was a red and black patterned fan. Her long black hair was pulled back into a loose braid. At the end of the braid was fastened a jade ring.

She had never known her mother, the demoness having sold her as a baby to her father. She never knew exactly what her father had paid for her, but since goods had exchanged hands, she literally belonged to Naraku.

He had always held her heart in his hands, reminding her that he could kill her in a second, but this didn't stop her attempts to have him killed. She just wasn't able to do it herself. She had had a good deal to do with the circumstances leading to his sealing. The fact that he still held her heart as his body was put into the black crystal was an unforeseen benefit. He could not move, nor could anyone else harm her heart while he held it within his stone prison.

Kagura was, in effect, immortal.

"So what do we do about it? The bastard's making me sick and he's not even around."

"We will find him."

"Why? Why not avoid him? I'd much, much rather avoid him."

Kanna turned pale, blank eyes on her sister.

"Trust me."

Kagura shivered.

Naraku had retreated to his old home, a castle he could move at will. He had expected it to be overgrown after 500 years, but then he remembered that he had only been sealed a few weeks ago, at this point in time. There was a thin layer of dust covering things, but he found that this only added to the gloom.

Actually, it was probably more creepy in there with it, and so he let the dust, and the spiders, stay.

"Bwahahahahahaaa," he muttered, taking his customary place by the windows. Laughing evilly was something he had learned in the future. It was ridiculous and futile, but still fun.

He pulled a simple wooden carving from his pocket, and slowly slid himself into the demon puppet it controlled. This one was off searching for new youkai with power. If he couldn't have Sesshoumaru, he would have to find someone else to make up for it.

Seeing as this puppet wasn't doing anything too interesting, she switched to another one.

Ah, much better.

This puppet was searching for his daughters. He had almost forgotten about them in the time since he had been unsealed. Almost, but not quite.

This one wasn't making much more progress than the last, and so he returned to his real body, sitting by the window. The plot was slowing down, so he took the chance to rest.

He might not get another chance.

As he moved through the dark trees, Sesshoumaru got gradually more and more pissed off. What the hell was he even doing here. Naraku came to him with stories of power and might and then turns around and what, tries to eat him or something?

Sesshoumaru punched a tree. He used to punch walls, but there wasn't one around, and the tree sort of presented itself.

The bark splintered, sending needles of wood into the daiyoukai's skin.

"DAMN!"

For almost a second he expected to hear his stepmother yell back for him to watch his language. But then he remembered. She, and his father, were gone.

"DAMN!" he yelled again, louder.

"What's wrong with you?" Someone asked. He whirled around to come face to face with a girl. She was dressed almost entirely in black, but there were highlights of red on her, too.

"None of your business."

"Then quit shouting, you sound like a retard."

"Shut up, and go away."

"Like hell. I've been here for long before you. This is my territory, you leave."

"How about I kill you and take your territory?"

Sesshoumaru drew his sword, to demonstrate that he wasn't messing around. Had he done this in his own time, the girl would have run. But this wasn't his time, and the girl simply drew an oversized fan from her belt, slowly unfolding it so that it blocked most of her face.

"I'll fight you, boy, but don't be surprised if you get hurt."

"Not killed?"

"I couldn't take such advantage of an amateur."

"Let's see if you can back that up!"

Sesshoumaru wasn't sure exactly what the fan was for, nor did he particularly care. He charged pretty much blindly at her, preparing to swing the blade. She flicked her fan and the air twitched. Something red flew from the fan, clipping his shoulder. He stopped instantly, watching the girl intently. What had she done with the fan?

"Out of curiosity, did that hit you, or just your shirt?" She asked. "I'm still working on aim."

"Just my clothes, and you won't win a fight that way," Sesshoumaru snapped back.

"Well sor-ry. I see YOU don't have control over any of your demon powers yet, seeing as you're still stuck with that sword."

"It was my Dad's and I've gotta learn to use it. Though, now that you mention it, you might not be worth it."

"You don't have to make excuses, if you don't want to use it you can just put it away and fight with your demon powers," Kagura grinned, biting her lower lip in an ironic parody of shy innocence. "It's so much more fun that way."

Sesshoumaru charged again, without any warning this time, and Kagura barely had time to get her fan up and send more wind blades at him before he was on her. It was a random swing, but even a blind squirrel will find a nut if it's super-fast and fighting an unprepared enemy. To tell the truth, they were both amatures, but the power they held at their very fingertips disguised this fact very well.

Kagura held her left forearm with her right hand, trying to stop the fiery pain that spread through the skin. But, as if it had never happened, the pain disappeared. Kagura chanced a look at her arm, which she was sure must be cut almost through. Through the slick of blood, she could see that her skin was unbroken. A light white scar twisted down the side of her arm, but it disappeared even as she watched.

"What the hell kind of sword is that?" She screeched.

Sesshoumaru didn't pay any mind, he was examining his own injuries. For all his tough talking, there is no fifteen year old boy on earth that really expects to get sliced. One of the blades had lightly grazed his cheek, but it would have healed in a day or so. The real problem was on his right shoulder. One of the things had hit him pretty bad. He would be fine…except that's the hand he had to hold the tenseiga in.

"Hey? Are you even listening to me?"

"What the hell do you want?"

"What kind of idiot sword is that that doesn't cut people?"

"What are you talking about? I got you on you arm, look it's covered in blood!"

"But there's no cut. Truce, whatever, come look."

"Like hell!"

Kagura sighed, and put her fan on the ground. She started to walk toward Sesshoumaru.

"I'll come to you, then."

She raised her arm, displaying the lack of injury.

"That's… really weird…" Sesshoumaru breathed, looking at tenseiga.

"By the way, I'm Kagura of the wind," she said, extending her not- bloodsoaked hand.

"Sesshoumaru. Of the twenty first century," he replied, shaking it lightly.

"Yeah whatever."

Okay, that's all you get for now, because I'm juggling about 4 stories right now. (And nobody's reviewing any of them, it's making me depressed.)

By the way, a gi is the outfit people wear when working on karate or tae kwan do.

Okay, question of the chappie: What's the translation of Setsuna no Takemaru?

(Yes, I know another Takemaru question, I'm so repetitive)

Guess and I'll send you a nifty pic I did.


	17. Everybody fights

People who got it right: Thank you, once again, Kitsune Ryune. (You are the new Britannica, I swear) She's also the winner of the Longest Review ever Contest!

So yay for you. (Claps.)

"It's back here. Watch out for the water, it's pretty far out right now."

Kikyo looked around her with carefully concealed awe. She figured she was only a few miles away from the bone eater's well but her method of getting there had been… different.

Now, she was standing by a large waterfall that poured into a lake. The whole thing was surrounded by trees, their leaves tinting the air a deep forest green. As she watched, the red-haired kitsune slipped behind the waterfall, and out of sight. Watching the falling gems of water, to make sure she didn't get hit by any of them, she followed.

"It's not much, but it's dry and we won't get attacked," Shippo continued.

"You never did tell me your name," Kikyo said suddenly.

"You never gave me yours."

"My name is Kikyo."

"Shippo. At your service," he joked, giving a large, theatrical bow.

"You've got a tail!"

"Huh? Really?" Shippo twisted around, trying to look at the orange fur. "You don't say."

"You're mocking me."

"No I'm not. You're just saying obvious things and I'm humoring you."

"Humoring me, huh?"

"Exactly. I'm rather good at it, I think."

There was silence for a second.

"Can I ask you something?" Kikyo said.

"Too late."

"True. Well, can I ask you something else?"

"You can ask whatever question you want. Except," Shippo held up one finger. "That one. By the time you've got the sentence finished you've already got your answer."

"Why do you want to help me?"

"You look like you needed it."

"What?"

Shippo backpedaled. Wrong answer. Kikyo was one of those independent chicks.

"I mean…"

"I don't need it."

"Fine. Whatever floats your boat."

Eek. Wrong answer, again.

"I bet one on one I could beat you."

"Look, I didn't mean to upset-" the kitsune froze. "What?"

"You heard me, I could kick your ass!"

"Yeah? You bet? Let's make a wager."

"Fine," Kikyo raised her fists. "When I win, you have to help me find a way to fix the well."  
"You're asking for help, now?"

"Only because you have the magic to break it, you should be able to fix it."

"Fair enough. But if I win, you have to kiss me."

Kikyo's jaw dropped, her fists going slack.

"Pervert!"

"Yeah, I know. But I thought you weren't going to lose?"

"Fine."

Kikyo attacked without another word.

* * *

"Hey, Kanna, any water around here?"

"Who's Kanna?"

Sesshoumaru's question was answered as the white- clad girl stepped from the shadows. She held an outturned mirror in her hands. On it's surface were swirling patterns of water, though there was no sound. Silently, the ghost-like girl pointed.

"Oh, good. Come on, let's see if we can't get some of this blood off."

Sesshoumaru watched the two girls disappear, not looking back at him. He raised a hand to his face, feeling the cut there. It wasn't so bad, but it made him think.

This was really a dangerous place, and he didn't seem to be nearly as powerful as Naraku had led him to believe. Actually, at this moment, he didn't seem to have any power at all. He couldn't work his demon powers well enough yet, and on top of that, his father's sword wouldn't cut things.

It fixed things, actually. That gave him an idea. The cut on his right shoulder was pretty bad. It would hurt like hell for a while, if nothing else. Could the tenseiga fix a wound it had not inflicted?

He pulled his shirt off. He'd test it.

Raising the sword with his left hand, he drew the blade along his right shoulder, making a second cut perpendicular to the first. He winced as the skin bled anew, but wiped the red liquid away. It was not replaced with more. The cuts, both of them, were laced over with new skin, which darkened to the color of the flesh around it. After slightly less then a minute there was no sign that anything had ever happened. The cut on his face was gone, as well.

"Perhaps it's not such a worthless sword," he murmured.

"Hey, are you coming, or what?"

His eyes snapped up. Kagura was standing a few yards away, clicking her fan impatiently.

"What?"

"Your clothes are covered in blood, and you'll get attacked more if you look like you're injured. You also get attacked more if you're alone. So why don't you come with us?"

"So you can kill me when I'm off guard?"

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. I've had much more practice in fighting than you have."

He had to admit that she was right.

"Fine."

He grabbed his shirt from the ground and followed after the demon girl.

* * *

"You found them in the forest?"

"Aye, milady. They seem to be but children, and humans at that."

"We supposed you would be able to deal with them?"

Kagome rubbed her temples. It was too late at night for this, much too late. On the other hand, she couldn't just tell them to keep the potentially dangerous demons tied up all night.

"Fine. This is gonna take ten minutes, right?"

"Aye."

Kagome followed the two villagers outside, to where she could vaguely make out three figures on the ground. Their hands and feet were bound, but if they were really demons, the ropes would do them little good.

"Okay, what have we got here?" she asked, taking a torch and lowering it. She froze.

Sitting there was a boy and a girl of about ten, and the hanyou she had seen earlier.

"Kikyo?" the boy asked. "I thought you were going home."

"Why're you dressed so funny?" the girl added.

"That's not Kikyo, guys. That's the lady from earlier."

"I SO do not need you right now," Kagome said, gesturing to the hanyou on the ground. She'd been killing demons all day, and eighteen hours worth of work was weighing heavily on her mind, as well as body.

"Why me?"

"Look, we aren't any sort of threat, boy scout promise. We came upon your village on accident, and if it's all the same to you, we'll just leave."

"We can't let the demon boy go," one villager spoke up. "There's too many already."

"There's no reason to kill him," the girl spoke up. "My name is Sango, this is Miroku, and the boy there is called Inuyasha. I come from a family of taijiya, and I can swear to you that none of us shall do you any harm."

"You," Kagome said, pointing to Sango. "You come with me. As for the others, untie them and find somewhere for them to sleep."

She watched as her orders were seen to.

"In the morning, if either of you are missing, we'll assume that you are, in fact, hostile and will not hesitate to kill her."

The two boys nodded.

"All right then. Come on."

Sango followed after her, sending a look over her shoulder at her friends. Inuyasha waved slightly, and then the darkness came between them.

"Are you really a taijiya?"

"I am descended from them, yes."

"How can you be descended from a family that is still alive?"

"We come from far in the future. There, demons do not exist. We had to come here, or Inuyasha would have been killed, like his parents."

"And what loyalty do you have to the boy?"

"I am his friend. I have nothing else to offer."

Kikyo unrolled her sleeping pallet in front of the only door. She gestured to another for Sango.

"So what will you do, should I decide not to kill you?"

"We seek a terrible demon by the name of Naraku. If we don't kill him, Miroku will be killed by a curse that was placed on his ancestors long ago. If we destroy him here, he will not exist where we come from, and will have never existed. It's hard to explain, but a lot of lives will be saved that way."

"Seems like an honorable enough quest. I don't know a demon named Naraku, but there is a village of taijiya in the north. Perhaps they can help you."

"Thank you."

Sango suddenly noticed something as Kagome blew out the light,

"What's that glowing thing?"

"This is my charge. It is the Shikon no Tama, and it's my job to protect it from demons who would use it for evil."

"Sounds hard."

"It is."

With that, Kagome dropped off to sleep. Sango following her.

* * *

"It's getting kinda dark," Sesshoumaru remarked.

"You're not scared, are you?" Kagura teased.

"No, I'm not. I was just remarking."

Kagura looked up at the sky. It was changing quickly from a dark blue to black. Slight winds blew across the lake, whispering to her.

"We should make camp."

"Over there," Kanna directed, pointing.

"What? Why there?"

"She never says why," Kagura explained. "But it's always better to just do what she says."

"Yeah, whatever…"

Sesshoumaru carried his shirt with him, it was still too wet to actually wear. He was lucky. Kagura had to actually wear her dripping clothes, though she had removed them to wash them. What an ordeal that had been. The stereotypical anime I'm-not-looking-but-I-may-see-something-on-accident scene. To his credit, he hadn't.

"It's freaking cold out here. Why's it so cold all of a sudden?"

"I dunno. I can't feel it," Sesshoumaru mumbled, lying back on the grass. Kanna had actually picked a nice place. It was a grassy hill looking out over a town. The stars reflected off the water in the rice paddies, giving the impression of a village hanging from the sky.

"Well, it is," she said, dropping down beside him. Kanna positioned herself at the top of the hill, watching the stars move.

"Does she even sleep?"

"No."

"See, now that would freak me out."

"You get used to it."

"I'm going to sleep now. I'll trust you not to kill me."

"Ditto."

The two teenagers closed their eyes and slowly drifted off

* * *

_She's quick, for a human. Not quick enough to beat me, but still quick._

The kitsune grinned. If Kikyo didn't have anything better than this, that kiss was as good as his. He dodged a fluffy of attacks that would probably have crippled a human. She knew pain points, as well as fighting skill.

He didn't strike back. If he hit her, she'd get hurt, and badly. He'd win faster, but then his prize would come from unwilling lips, and would therefore not progress any further than the rules of debt specified.

Which made the whole fight useless.

_Why doesn't he fight back? He's just dodging, playing with me._

Kikyo had to win this, she really did need his help, even if it killed her to admit it. Not to mention that the price of losing was more than she really wanted to pay.

No matter what tricks she used, she couldn't land a single hit. This unnerved her a lot, because back home she'd been able to take on anyone in the force. She almost always won, even without any tricks. But this guy… it was like he wasn't even trying to fight, just to dodge.

She was using up a lot of energy, launching a barrage of attacks… and he was waiting for it to be gone.

She slowed her attacks, hoping to draw him into a false sense of security. It didn't work.

_Every time she misses she put her guard up anyway. I'm obviously not hitting back, so why bother?_

Kikyo's assault lessened. But she was only faking. Her body betrayed her, putting more and more force into the lessened number of attacks. She was getting desperate, he could see it in her eyes.

This human woman was absolutely fascinating. For someone who claimed not to need anyone, she fell apart rather quickly when he acted differently than she expected.

It was really too bad she'd be gone in the morning.

_I shouldn't ever have challenged him. He carried me here over the treetops, for god's sake. What was I thinking?_

Kikyo was honestly beginning to get tired, while Shippo showed no sign that he was even fighting. Ah, well. She hadn't really expected him to help her, had she?

No, not really….

* * *

Okay, only two people took me up on the last offer for my awesome pic, which is a shame for all the workI did on it.

So here's another chance: If anybody reviews another story of mine that I did, I'll send it to you, okay?

baibai!

melissa


	18. In the morning

I was thinking… and thinking…. And kinda zoning out a bit, and then it hit me. I know how I shall end this. I KNOW! THE KNOWINGNESS IS MINE!

Which is weird cuz usually I'm just writing along in a daze and all of a sudden I realize that I'm not typing anymore, and I wonder why and it's just like… oh. I'm done. When did that happen?

By the way. For Kikyo and Shippo, he's kinda patronizing of her. He should be, it's the equivalent of, say, Kagome and Inuyasha getting into a fistfight. Inuyasha: Dominates.

* * *

_If I can play this right… I may get more than I bargained for._

Slowing down substantially and hoping he hadn't blown it already, Shippo lashed out at Kikyo. He had anticipated her move and struck accordingly. As a result, it looked like he had genuinely tried to hit her. And missed. One second later, a rather powerful blow caught him in the chest. That he hadn't actually expected, but the look of shock on his face probably added to the performance.

* * *

_So that's why he hasn't been fighting back. Offensive motions throw his defenses way off._

Kikyo dodged another hit, and landed another of her own. This was working out rather well. The more he tried to actually hit her, the less attention he paid to dodging her attacks.

She landed another two hits, and he landed one as well.

And another.

Now he wasn't even attempting to dodge, and Kikyo was having to move so fast just to keep up on the defense that she couldn't get her offense back up.

* * *

_Last chance… leave myself open for one second… hopefully she's good enough to see it._

Shippo overbalanced for one second, putting too much weight in a swing intended to miss. He flailed his arms, trying to regain his balance. This, of course, left him wide open. He felt himself get hit, really hard, right in the chest.

What's that one spot called? Solar something. Damn, does that ever hurt.

Kikyo took advantage of his momentary disorientation to swing one foot under his, bringing the man to the ground.

* * *

_Should'a brought my handcuffs, would THAT ever have freaked this guy out._

Placing one knee squarely in the canter of the flattened kitsune's back, Kikyo twisted his arms behind his back. Here, she definitely had the advantage. She'd cuffed perps three times her own size before.

"Say uncle," she quipped.

"What? Why?"

"Oh, just say it."

"Uncle."

"That means I win, you know."

"I know I know, just get your knee outta my back would ya? Ow…"

Haltingly, Kikyo complied.

"Well, damn. Never thought I woulda lost to a girl."

"Sexist."

"And always have been."

"We'll start working on the well in the morning, all right?"

"Yeah, fine. Dibs on the bed. Unless," he sent a sly grin at Kikyo, "You want to share?"

"No, that's okay. You can have it."

Shippo hadn't even noticed that it was getting really dark outside. The lichen inside the cave glowed slightly red, making it kinda hard to tell time.

Kikyo moved to the corner of the cave, as far as she could be from the bed. Always one for making blunt points, that girl.

Shippo looked a bit guiltily at her. For just a second, he felt bad about letting her win. But he shook it off. Hopefully, it would work out better for both of them in the long run.  
Picking up the blanket from the sleeping pallet, he walked silently over to her. With a bit of shock he realized she was already sleeping. Sleeping or faking really well.

Trusting the natural heat of the rock to take over the rest, he lay the blanket over her, and retreated to his own sleeping area.

* * *

"WHEN EXACTLY DID THIS HAPPEN?" Sesshoumaru choked out. Kagura woke up very slowly. It must have been close to ten o clock in the morning, and she was very comfortable.

"Ten more minutes," she mumbled, burying her face in her pillow.

… wait a minute….

Her eyes flew open to reveal what she had mistaken for a pillow was actually a very displeased daiyoukai. She must have latched on to him in the night. Her face burning, she let go and jumped backward.

"How long have you been doing that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. I don't really remember much after I fall asleep, believe it or not."

"Kanna!"

"Yes?"

"When did she decide I was part of her bedding?"

"Shortly after you fell asleep. I would have awakened you, but you didn't seem all too displeased about it at the time."

It was Sesshoumaru's turn to flush red.

"Right, from now on, we're sleeping at least ten feet apart. I don't care if it's negative infinity degrees and we freeze to death."

"Deal!"

"Probably drooled on me and everything," the boy muttered, examining his clothes for drool marks. There weren't any.

"Oh, shut up."

"Make me!"

"You wanna go?"

"Not now," Kanna said in her eerie monotonous voice. "Now we must move."

"Why, Kanna?" Kagura asked, all hostility forgotten.

"Someone is looking for us."

"Don't worry, it's probably just my stupid brother and his idiot friends. Where are they, Kanna?"

Kanna extended one milky-white finger to where the trees stopped. Emerging from them was a familiar white-cloaked figure.

"Shit," Kagura and Sesshoumaru said in almost perfect unison. "He's looking for me."

They looked at each other questioningly.

"Jinx."

"Why's he looking for you?"

"Why the hell should I know? One minute he's rambling on about world conquest and then three seconds later he's trying to eat me, and then he's just gone. Why, how do you know him?"

"I'm his daughter. Well, kinda."

"Kinda? How are you kinda someone's daughter?"

"It's a long story."

"I expect to hear it."

"I'm sure you will. But right now… let's run."

"Run? Why? I thought you were the all powerful wind sorceress. And according to him, I'm the super-amazing daiyoukai. Come on, we can take him."

"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that. I can't fight him, literally. If he sees me, I'm screwed. So let's move."

"This must really be one long story."

"Less yap more move."

Taking Kanna by the hand, Kagura moved silently down the hill, putting Naraku's puppet out of eyesight. Once she was sure it couldn't see her, she turned and ran to the opposite side of the field, disappearing onto the forest.

Sesshoumaru quirked an eyebrow and, taking one last look at the puppet, followed.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want a guide?"

"We're sure. We can take care of ourselves. Thank you though, for everything."

Kagome smiled at the children. The villagers had provided them with enough food to make it to the demon slayer's village. It was only a day's journey or so, on foot.

"Follow this path, and ask at each village which way to go. Everyone for miles around has knows of the taijiya. If you lose your way, you will have tried very hard indeed."

Inuyasha grinned.

"Bye! And thanks for letting us stay here."

Kagome remained stoically quiet. Every instinct she had was urging her away from the boy, though she knew he was no threat. As she watched the three children walk away from the village, and old cliche occurred to her.

_I will see them again._

* * *

"So let me see if I've got the timeline straight here," Miroku asked. "Right about a year ago, here, that Naraku guy cursed my ancestors with the wind tunnel. Right after that, he was sealed somehow, but not killed. That's why he hasn't been around for the last five hundred years. So, recently, in our time, he must have been released, and then went on wreaking as much havoc as ever."

"Right. He must have been the one who drew Sesshoumaru away from the house. Without him around the humans had as easier time attacking. He probably had something to do with Sesshoumaru's attacks on me, as well."

"So, logically, if we destroy him in this time period, he will have never existed in our time."

"So our parents come back to life?" Inuyasha asked.

"Technically, they will never have been dead," Sango corrected.

"On the other hand," Miroku put in quietly, "We will probably never meet one another. This being the past that we are messing around with, none of us will remember anything that happened here."

"I want Mommy and Daddy and Sesshy back," Inuyasha said stubbornly.

"I want my parents," Sango agreed.

"Then we're agreed. We'll destroy Naraku, and that's all there is to it."

"And it'll be easy because he's sealed," Inuyasha piped up. He took Sango's hand, and the two of them quickened their pace slightly. Miroku looked sadly at Sango for only a second, then focused his eyes ahead.

* * *

Naraku cursed. Everything was going very, very wrong.

His daughters were missing, and very pointedly so. He had a daiyoukai incredibly pissed at him and running loose in the sengoku jidai. To top it all off, he had a score of new enemies all of a sudden. Granted, they were just children, but sweet, innocent children change quickly enough into hardened, bloodthirsty adults. Particularly if they were vengeful, as these three were.

He wasn't worried for himself, as much. What he was worried about was his other self, the one from the past. Somewhere, he was helpless and trapped inside a black crystal. He didn't even know where the stone was. It came into his life somewhere near Okinawa and left it five hundred years later in southern California, where it was shattered, releasing him.

In other words, it could be anywhere at all.

And he had no choice but to find it before anyone else did.

* * *

Thanks, as always, to Invader Iza and Kitsune Ryune. Thanks for sticking with me, guys.


	19. Naraku's prison, the black crystal

Whee! New chappie! This one's dedicated to Kappei Lover, my latest Pet Author. (A pet author is when I find someone reaaaaaly good and systematically read everything they've ever written. It cuts down on the crappage intake.)

* * *

"It can't follow us anymore. Spill."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Yes, there is too. How can you kind of be someone's daughter?"

"We're not so much offspring as… well… incarnations."

"So you're part of him?"

"We were. See, as close as I can figure out, he's made up of a bunch of demons which can form and reform themselves. We're some of the reformations. Maybe. He wasn't really into the tell- Kagura- what's- going-on thing."

"So that's why you can't fight him? You're part of his body?"

"We are our own, separate entities," Kanna monotoned. "But he holds my sister's heart in his hands. Dare she betray him, he shall crush it."

"Probably never even think twice, cold bastard," Kagura exclaimed. "Thank you Kanna, that was lovely."

Kanna said nothing.

"I don't think she even hears sarcasm. It's too subtle for her," Kagura explained.

"So you can't even run away for long, can you?"

"I… I don't know. I've never tried. Eventually… I think I'll have to go back. I'll have to go back and serve him again. Dammit! I wasn't made for this!"

"But if he were to be killed… you wouldn't have to anymore? You'd be free?"

"Yeah, but there's no one to kill him. I can't, Kanna's too busy being neutral, and there's no one else!"

"But he said he was sealed for over 500 years. When did that happen?"

"Never, apparently. He was sealed only a few months ago. I thought he'd be gone for a long, long time, but apparently he broke free of it, because, surprise! He's back."

"No, you don't get it. Right now, there are two Narakus."

"What? When exactly did this happen? Damn, I had enough of a problem, what am I going to do about this?"

"It happened five hundred years from now, that's when. Now listen carefully. I grew up on sci- fi movies and I still barely understand this myself. Five hundred years from now, the seal placed a few months ago is broken, and Naraku is released. He's in my time- the twenty first century. But there's this portal to this time form that one. He comes back from the future and ends up here."

"So he's still sealed?"

"Exactly."

"Perfect! Now all I've gotta do is destroy him inside the seal and he'll cease to exist! Ha! That bastard'll never know what hit him!"

Kagura punched the air, no doubt envisioning Naraku's head floating in it.

"So how will you find him?"

"Just me? Aren't you coming?"

"This isn't my fight. My fight is with the Naraku from my time. I'll kill him on my own."

"But they're the same person!"

"You think? No, I think a person can completely change. Probably in less than a day, too."

He thought of himself only a few days ago. A regular teenager upset about being grounded Friday night. Not he was a daiyoukai, the son of one of the most powerful demons of the time.

He started. If this was so far in the past… then his father was still alive… somewhere…

He shook his head. He had run away in the first place because he didn't care. If he went sneaking back now, to a father who didn't know he would ever exist… no. Not worth it.

"Well, I wish I could tell you I think we'll meet again. Soppy hero parting and all that, but I kinda get the feeling we'll never see each other again," Kagura told him.

"Then good luck."

"You too."

Parting ways for the last time, they disappeared from each other's sight. Kagura headed off towards god knows where, and Sesshoumaru trying to track down the demon puppet they had just seen. That would lead him to Naraku.

* * *

"Is this it?" Inuyasha asked eagerly.

"How can it not be?" Sango replied

"It's a huge, wall- surrounded, completely isolated town, surrounded by sentries in matching armor," Miroku observed. "If this isn't the taijiya village, I say we ditch them and take our chances with these guys."

"Hey, those are my ancestors you're talking about!" Sango exclaimed, defending her family.

"Yeah, and if you go back far enough we're related to monkeys, too."

"We're related to monkeys?" Inuyahsa gasped. This was news to him. "I bet it's Uncle Patch. He's really hairy, but Mom always said not to say anything."

Miroku and Sango bit back giggles. Said giggled were cut off rather abruptly when a squad of the taijiya approached them from the back.

"Who goes there?"

"We're just kids, could you, um, lay off the weapons a little?"

The taijiya took a once- over of Miroku's jeans, Sango's elbow- pad armor, and Inuyasha's ears, and decided not to comply.

"State your business."

"We're looking for a demon named Naraku," Sango explained.

"Be you his comrades? You'll not free him, we've bound him well!"

"Quite the opposite, actually," Miroku added. "We're trying to destroy him."

"He's killed all of our parents," Inuyasha piped up, his little face set in a mask of something almost like hate. "If we kill him, they'll come back to life."

The taijiya exchanged looks.

"Um, look kids. We're real sorry about your parents and all, but that's not really how it works…"

"It does for us," Sango snapped. "There's an explaination, but if we complete our mission you'll forget you ever heard it. Now, do you know where he is or not?"

"Naraku's been sealed for near half a year," A brave tijiya piped up.

"But we need to know," Miroku asked, "Why did all of you simply seal him instead of killing him now? Had you done so, it would have saved us a lot of trouble."

"A demon that powerful cannot simply be killed. He must be purified," the same taijiya went on. The others were starting to give him dirty looks.

"Can't you get a preist or priestess to do it? It can't be that hard."

"Nor is it that simple."

"Oh, come on. If you're gonna blab the whole thing we might as well take them in!"

"That'd be nice of you. We've been walking for a while now," Miroku explained.

"We'll have to take you to the village Miko."

"Who's she?"

* * *

"This is Kaede. She's the priestess for our village."

The three children bowed politely.

"It's nice to meet you," Sango almost whispered. It occurred to her that she might be descended from this woman. She very much hoped so. The woman in front of her was dressed in traditional priestess robes, but the way she carried herself added more to them than any makeup could. She was maybe twenty- five, with dark brown eyes and pure white hair.

"I have heard that you children are looking for Naraku," she stated. No beating around the bush here. "I'm going to encourage you from here on to give up this quest. He's a dangerous demon, and battle is not a place for children such as you."

"We have no other place to go to," Sango countered. "By destroying the demon we can bring back our parents, and so we're going to do it!"

"Do you really think you're capable of it?" Kaede questioned.

"If we're not, then what?"

"Hmm. An interesting answer. Haven't heard that one yet."

"Huh?"

"You think you're the first? Naraku had an affinity for making enemies that almost bordered on talent. They've been showing up in droves, trying to destroy him within his stone prison. The lucky ones have given up and gone home."

"And the others?"

"Have been killed."

"By a sealed demon?"

"Maybe you should see him."

* * *

Something was killing off the demon puppets. Systematically. Something fast, and powerful, and pissed.

It also looked dangerously like Sesshoumaru, and that was precisely where Naraku was having a problem.

Somehow the daiyoukai was using one to find another, killing the first, and repeating the process. How?

He had no idea, and it was scaring him. He was running out of puppets and Sesshoumaru was getting closer and closer to his hiding place.

Not that he couldn't fight the little brat off, but he wasn't used to fighting his own battles. If he could only find Kagura…

But that would never happen if he couldn't keep the things out looking for her. Conjuring up a half dozen more and sending them on their way, Naraku focused his energy on Sesshoumaru's progress, and things that could be done to limit said progress.

* * *

"That's the biggest rock ever!" Inuyasha exclaimed, running circles around the huge crystal. It was shaped like a regular quartz point, but it was easily as wide as he was tall, and twice as tall. It was also pure black, but not so much in color as feeling. It was the black that fills your vision when you're awakened at midnight to hear heavy footsteps crossing your empty apartment.

"It's freaking me out just looking at it!" Sango cried.

"Unless it's purified, he will remain inside forever, never dying," Keade told them.

"How can we purify it?" Miroku queried. "There has to be a way."

"There is. But you'd have to find someone completely innocent. Incarnated somehow, that innocence could destroy Naraku's evil, But it would itself be destroyed in the process."

"How exactly do you incarnate innocence?" Sango puzzled.

"We don't know, or we would have done it."

"Come on, this is like one of those old fairy tales, isn't it? You have to say, 'oh, yes, but no one has seen it in a bazillion years,' or maybe 'yes, but it is guarded by Hellfire the Dragon at the top of Pointy- rock mountain' or something like that."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but no. Like I said, if there was a way, we would have done it already."

Miroku kicked at a rock.

"This sucks."

"If I could tell you how many of you say that…"

* * *

Annd… CUT! That's a wrap, take five people.

Sorry it's so short, I'm just trying to get SOMETHING Up here…


	20. Red glass, the shattered gem

To Overactive mind: Hey, welcome back, and thanks for the review. You'll have to wait and see, nyah!

To Invader Iza: Yup.

To Kitsune Ryune: NO! No smashie! I'll sic Godzilla on you!

Yes, I'm sorry for the excess of suck recently. I'll try to be better in the next ones, K?

I vow to suck less, that I do.

* * *

"A baby?"

"That's not innocence, it's more like ignorance."

"Then a little kid."

"We can't take that away from a child. That's the thing about innocence. Anyway, we still don't even know how to incarnate it."

"This is fairy land we're in here, there's gotta be SOME way to do it. Some kind of spell or something."

Sango and Miroku sighed in unison. It didn't occur to them that they themselves were still children, but I don't suppose it ever does, does it? Inuyasha, bored with sitting around debating a problem that couldn't be solved, had taken it apon himself to examine the black prison from every possible angle, including above.

"Don't climb on that thing, Kid!" Kaede called to him. To herself she muttered, "I'm not a babysitter, this is SO not my job…"

Being a miko wasn't really a job that suited her. That's why the jewel had been given to her younger sister to protect. Kaede didn't mind. Demons looking for it tended to attack in the middle of the night, and she'd rather be asleep.

Yup, guarding the jewel was definitely a job for-

Kaede sat straight up, the wheels in her head spinning way faster then they were really meant to .

"Why did I not think of this any sooner?"

Sango and Miroku glanced her way.

"The jewel! The shikon no tama has incredible spiritual powers. Probably we could be able to purify the stone with it."

"The shikon no tama? That's what Kagome was telling me about…" Sango mused.

"You've met my sister? When?"

"She's your sister?"

"Yes."

"You guys look nothing alike."

"So we've been told. So when did you meet her?"

"We stayed at her village only a night ago. She was the one who sent us to you."

"Well, I'm sending you back. Tell her she needs to come to our village, and bring the jewel."

Kaede pulled a beaten copper amulet from around her neck.

"Give her this, so she'll know you're from me."

"Okay!" Inuyasha shouted, appearing from nowhere to snatch the amulet. "Come on, you guys! Let's goooooo!"

He started to run off, but Kaede lifted him right off the ground by the back of his shirt.

"Hold up. Why don't you just go tomarrow?"

"We have to leave as soon as possible," Miroku told her.

"The sooner we get all of this behind us, the easier it'll be, in the end," Sango finished. She looked at Miroku, but snapped her eyes back as he turned to look at her.

Kaede, who had seen all of this, smiled secretly, but said nothing.

* * *

(Okay, in the last segment, it was late at night, but here it's early morning of the same day. I can't believe I forgot these guys!)

"Does it work yet?" Shippo called sarcastically, looking down at the woman crumpled at the bottom of the well.

"No, not yet!" she yelled back, glaring at everything she could see.

"I don't blame it. I wouldn't work this freakin' early in the morning, either!"

"Shut up! You're the one who broke it!"

"I did not!"

"Did too! You and your stupid fireballs!"

"It's kitsunebi!" he shot back, firing a ball of the heatless flame at her to demonstrate.

"Keep that stuff away from the well!"

"If the thing's broken, the fire won't do anything at this point but help."

"Fine, whatever. Come get me."

"With pleasure," Shippo said, immediately changing his tune. He dropped down into the well, and scooped her into his arms, bridal- style.

"Watch the hands," Kikyo warned, with good reason. They _were_ in a rather interesting place.

"Oh, can't a guy have a bit of fun?"

"No. No he can't."

"Hmph."

The two of them shot out of the well. Kikyo slipped out of Shippo's arms a bit sooner then he would have wanted her to.

"So what can we do to fix this thing?"

"We'd have to have some kind of healer, to right to flow of energy. Power, and probably time through the well."

"And that means we have to go find…?"

"Some preist."

"Okay. See, that I can deal with. Let's go find him."

"Well, we'll probably have to go find a town for that."

"And the problem is…?"

"Nothing. Come on, let's go. The nearest one's about an hour away. Hop on."

"Like hell. I can walk, and I want to never touch you again, if I can help it."

"Well, okay then. In that case, it's about a half a day's walking, provided we aren't attacked."

"Then we should start walking."

* * *

Sesshoumaru tore through the last puppet. It hadn't been able to lead him to another, which meant it had to lead him to the original. And when it stopped, that meant that Naraku was somewhere around here. All that remained was to find the tricky bastard.

The castle was big, but it appeared to be deserted. The smell of Naraku was everywhere, but the man himself was nowhere to be found.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are…" Sesshoumaru said in a sing- song voice. Hunters in scary movies always said that, and he sure felt the part of one now.

To his surprise, Naraku did actually appear, at his command. A spotlight appeared from nowhere, illuminating a single figure in the gloom.

"It would be best for you to leave, Sesshoumaru," the hanyou said amiably. "Before someone gets hurt."

"And that someone would be you," Sesshoumaru replied.

"I don't really think so. You remember my daughter, don't you?"

A second spotlight appeared behind him. Kagura stood there, two fans in her hands. A normal girl would have cried in her position. She took her unshed tears and converted them to hate. That hate filled her and spilled from her eyes as she glared daggers at the man in front of her.

"If my puppets have informed me correctly, you two spent the night together, correct? It would be a shame to have to fight her to the death, now wouldn't it?"

'I won't fight her, Naraku. I came to kill you, not to get entangled in your tricks again."

"Well, things don't always turn out like we want them to, do they? Shame."

"Shame for you," Sesshoumaru replied, flicking out with the green light. It almost hit the hanyou, but he jumped at the last second. The whip continued outward, hitting the next thing in line: Kagura. She didn't even flinch as blood began to trickle from a hairline cut on her hand. Instead, she continued to focus on Naraku, who once again landed in front of her.

"That won't work either. She won't move, I won't let her."

Sesshoumaru noted with disgust the red, faceted jewel Naraku held in his hands. It was chipped and marred, no doubt from Naraku's abuses in the past, but still it shone with a bloody light.

He would give it back to her, if it was the last thing he ever did.

He would give Kagura back her heart.

But he didn't know how. Any attack aimed at Naraku would hit Kagura if it missed. Projectiles wouldn't work.

He lunged at Naraku, poison claws outstretched. Naraku grinned slightly, preparing to dive sideways.

A breeze blew through the building, whistling through the doorways and cracks in the walls. It soon grew to a gale. Sesshoumaru stopped his attack and focused on not getting blown away.

"Kagura, stop it!" Naraku ordered. His command was ignored, if anything, Kagura's wind blew harder. Hairline cracks shot through the jewel as Naraku's claws dug painfully into it. If he put much more pressure on it, the thing would shatter. If Kagura felt any pain, she didn't show it.

Flicking her fan back one last time, she sent red blades of light flying it her master. He tried to avoid, only to fin there was nowhere to hide.

The wind cut into his body, hard. The white fur he always wore was shredded in seconds.

Kagura looked down at the splinters of red glass that littered the floor, and smiled.

She was free.

* * *

"So just any old preist will be able to fix the well?"

"I guess so. I don't know how that thing works."

Shippo scratched his head.

"Actually, I don't know much about preists either."

"I believe that. So let's just find one, explain our position, and get him to fix it for us."

"Yeah. Sounds good."

Without another word, the two approached the town. Not many people were around, which was probably understandable. It was about five in the afternoon, and everyone was inside.

Kikyo stopped a lone boy running by.

"Hey, kid, is there a preist in this little town anywhere?"

The boy shook his head.

"But there is a miko. She lives over there."

He pointed at a lone house and ran off to whatever game he had been playing.

"A miko, huh? Even better," Shippo remarked, grinning. Striding to the building, he rapped his knuckles on the door.

"Anybody home?"

The curtained door was pushed aside, and the kitsune hound himself face to face not with the pretty woman he had expected.

More like the business end of a bow and arrow.

"State your business, demon," the woman behind the bow demanded.

"What the hell?" sputtered Shippo.

"What the hell?" echoed Kikyo. The miko turned to look at her. Her eyes widened as they met a pair that mirrored them exactly.

She lowered the bow.

* * *

Yay! That's all for right now. It's short, but at least stuff happened, yes?

I have a really short but really good story to tell, too. True story. Here it is:

Once apon a time there was a hopeless otaku who fell in love with a bishounen named Inuyasha. She put pictures of him all over her room, and even on the computer's desktop. Her Idiot Sister often mocked her obsession, I mean love, telling her that the bishounen was not a bishounen at all, but actually a woman.

Well, this hurt the otaku very badly, and she vowed to prove her Idiot Sister wrong. She tossed and turned many nights, thinking of how to make the mockery stop. Finally, it occurred to her. She made a pilgrimage to the mecca of deviantart. There, using the skills only a dedicated otaku and rabid fangirl possess, she dug up every picture of Inuyasha (minus shirt) she could, and saved them to her Idiot Sister's folder.

Idiot Sister was awed at the otaku's uber- ness, and vowed never to mock her again.

The end.

* * *

To read the next chapter, hit the little purple button and type in the password. If you don't know what the password is, just type in as many words as possible. Maybe you'll get it right, there only are, like, a bazillin words it could be!


	21. The dramatic conclusion

Nobody guessed the right word, though some came close… cough cough grin

Wow, I almost forgot about his story. Anyway, it's gonna finish in this chapter and then there'll probably be an epilogue, and then I'm done with it. I'm really happy with this one in retrospect. I broke three of my writing records: Longest story ever, most run- on dialogue, and the most characters in one story. Speaking of characters, I seem to have lost Jaken somewhere along the way. Hmm…. Where is he?

* * *

"Look, I don't believe in reincarnation, I don't believe in demons, monsters, or little kids with dog ears. I just want to go home, where the weirdest thing I come in contact with is the occasional drunk."

Kagome was still staring at her reincarnation in awe. This was her… from the future?

"So he told me," Kikyo continued, gesturing at the kitsune, who had chosen to remain outside, "that we could get some priest to purify the energy trails or whatever. So will you do it?"

"Your … er… companion isn't quite right. It would take an exceptional amount of power to fix something of the magnitude you're describing."

"So I'm stuck here?"

"Not quite."

From within the folds of her haori, Kagome drew a small, marble- sized jewel. It glowed slightly.

"If you were to wish on this, it might fix the well."

It would also cause the jewel to cease to exist, though Kagome didn't feel this was necessary information.

Outside, Shippo's tail twitched. Slowly, he rotated around, one degree at a time. If they were talking about what he thought they were talking about… well, that would be rather interesting, indeed.

They were.

Shippo choked.

"What's wrong with you?" Kikyo asked, temporarily taking her eyes off the path home.

"That's the… the …"

"Stay back, demon," Kagome said calmly, without looking away from her reincarnation. "It's not meant for one such as you."

"Nah, I don't want it, but… man, I never thought I'd actually get to see this thing! So this is where you humans have been holing it up, eh?"

He dropped down beside the two women, folding into a sitting position.

"Can I touch it?"

"No."

"Aw, come on!"

"No."

"Shippo, stop being a pest."

"I'm not being a pest. If I was a pest I would do this."

Shippo pulled half a dozen leaves from his pouch, and scattered them about the room. They erupted in balls of smoke and the room was full of Shippos.

"Please?" They chanted. "Pretty pretty please with sprinkles and whipped cream and garlic and cherries on top?"

"NO!" Kagome shouted, holding the jewel away from them.

"Why not? Huh? Huh? Huh? HUH?"

Kikyo whacked a random Shippo upside the head.

"Shut up," she told it.

"Oww! What was that for?"

The rest of them disintegrated, turning back to leaves.

Kagome took Kikyo's hand and pressed the jewel into it.

"Wish on it, and the well will open."

Kikyo nodded, and silently wished.

* * *

Sesshoumaru scrutinized the obviously not dead Kagura, who was standing over the slightly more lifeless Naraku and examining the shattered pieces of her heart.

"Well, I thought I'd kill him and be the hero for you, but it seems you can take care of yourself."

"Damn straight."

"Kanna ought to be around here somewhere then, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. You can never really tell with Kanna."

"Um, on the subject of you not being dead… why?"

"I am dead."

Sesshoumaru, in one of the most OOC acts of the story, poked her shoulder.

"You don't look dead."

"Well, I'm not dead _now_. I'm dead five hundred years from now. My heart from now is still sealed, along with the other Naraku."

"Um… yeah, I knew that."

"So what'll you do now?"

Opening his mouth to make a smart remark, Sesshoumaru stopped.

He didn't know.

"You don't know either?"

"Well, what are you doing? There's no one to run from anymore, so…"

"I have five hundred years to live, and counting. Might as well make the best of it, right?"

Sesshoumaru grinned.

"Wait until the nineteen hundreds. You have to see Vegas, you'd love it."

"I'm sure it'll be awesome. So, what do we do for the four hundred years until then?"

"We?"

"Sure. I've got nobody else. It's not really much fun talking to Kanna."

"I bet. It's the same with my little brother, he's always shooting off his mouth about nothing."

Sesshoumaru checked, realizing what he had said.

"You have a little brother?"

"Yeah. A hanyou."

"Where is he?"

"I dunno. I don't really care, either."

"Why not? Get in a fight?"

"It's his fault my father's dead. Him and his mother."

"That sucks. So he probably hates you then, right?"

"… no."

Kagura sensed something long and dramatic, and so didn't say anything else.

"I tried to kill him when I found out about my father. And he still looked up to me. But I guess little kids are like that, right?"

"I guess so."

There was a silence. Kagura watched Sesshoumaru, who was watching the ceiling. His face was totally blank. Probably the long dramatic speech was playing through on the inside of his mind. Kagura was almost sorry she was missing it. It sounded like a good one.

"So you want to go find him?" She asked eventually.

"What?"

"Can't hurt."

"… fine."

"So where was the last place you saw him?"

* * *

"Was that it? I just wish on the thing and that's it?"

"N-no," Kagome stammered, looking at the intact jewel. "It should have disappeared."

"Maybe it's out of range," Kikyo wondered aloud.

"What?" Shippo piped up.

"Oh, in my time sometimes two things can't influence each other if they're too far away. Like, my old car alarm had to be set off from about three inches away."

"So… we have to get closer?" Shippo deciphered.

"Yeah."

"So come on, let's go."

"Wait!" Kagome interrupted. She eyed Shippo suspiciously. "Can I trust you?"

"Sure. Why not? It's easier to trust and be deceived then to suspect everyone who crosses your path. I personally won't be playing any tricks on you."

"And you?"

"I just want to go home."

Kagome considered for a moment, then nodded.

"All right."

She watched the two of them disappear through the doorway, and hoped she hadn't made a mistake.

* * *

As the others walked on, Inuyasha suddenly checked. Looking around at the thick trees surrounding to path, she raised his nose in the air and sniffed.

"Sesshie!" He yelled, bounding off into the makeshift path and, once again, into the trees. Miroku and Sango shared a look, and started off after him.

"I used to want a little brother," Sango said, trying to keep track of the red dot in front of her. "But this is too much work."

Miroku grinned at her, she didn't notice. Several seconds later they came to an abrupt stop, faced with a rather interesting scene. Inuyasha was perched on top of Sesshoumaru's shoulders, looking right into his face from a rather close vantage point. From a slight distance, a red- eyed teenage girl tried to hold in laughter.

"Hi Sesshy!" Inuyasha called, a bit more loudly than was really necessary.

"Get off my head, you little runt!" Sesshoumaru shouted, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge his younger brother.

"Don't kill him!" Sango begged, suddenly drawing attention to herself. "It's not his fault!"

"Yes it is, but I'm not going to kill him," Sesshoumaru said slowly. "Providing, of course, that he LETS GO OF MY HEAD!"

Inuyasha finally released his grip, dropping to the ground. Then, being a six- year- old, he bounced right back up and grabbed his brother's hand instead.

"Guess what Sesshy! Guess!"

"You've been abducted by aliens," Sesshoumaru said sarcastically.

"Nope. We're gonna bring Dad and Mom back to life!"

The daiyoukai stiffened. Was he serious? I mean yeah, magic may exist here, but is there a way to bring the dead to life? Or maybe his little friends just told him that to make it seem less real. He aimed a glare at the two of them.

"What's he talking about?"

"We think, since we're in the past and all, that we can keep all of our parents from being killed in the future," Miroku explained. "Since they were all killed, directly or indirectly, by Naraku, killing him now in the past would effectively save their lives."

"Yeah," Sesshoumaru said, nodding a bit uncomprehendingly.

"But that won't work," Kagura interrupted, stepping forward."

"Wait, who are you?" Sango asked.

"Kagura, if you really must know. But look, if you kill Naraku now, you'll go back to the future and everything will be the way it was and everyone will be full of love." This was accentuated by a few rather sarcastic hand motions. "But then you won't have a reason to come back here and kill him. So he'll live. So your parents will die. So you will come back and kill him. The whole vicious cycle repeats."

There was a minute of silence as this now information was processed.

"So… what do we do?" Sango asked finally.

"I say we kill him anyway," Sesshoumaru answered. "It's the only hope we've got."

"But what if it doesn't do any good?"

'Then we'll mark it down as an act of revenge and move on," Miroku said coldly.

No one said anything.

* * *

"Are we close enough yet?" Shippo asked.

"No."

"How do you know?"

"I just wished a minute ago, and it's still here."

"Well wish again!"

Kikyo wished again, and watched as the jewel totally failed to disappear.

"See? Are you happy now?"

"Yes. I am."

A slight breeze blew down the road the pair traveled. Shippo sniffed at it.

"Hey, weren't you with a bunch of kids?"

"Yeah."

"Where are they?"

"How should I know?"

"Well, there's a bunch of kids up ahead. I was just wondering if they were the same ones."

Following his words, a line of figures appeared over the next hill.

"Let's see, a red bouncy ball, a couple of ten year olds that sound like college grads, and a teenager with anger management problems. That's who I was with."

"Well, there's one more teen now, but I think these could be your guys."

"Yup."

Kikyo watched warily as the red- clad six year old ran ahead to her, waving. The others followed behind, a bit more slowly.

"Hi Kikyo!" Inuyasha yelled, reaching the two adults. "I thought you were going home! I'm glad you're still here. Wanna come with us some more! Cuz it was fun when you were around."

"No, that's okay, Inuyasha. I'm still going home. I just had to take a little… side trip."

"Really! Where'd you go? Did you have fun? Who's that?"

"Shippo, at your service," Shippo said, bowing low and pretending to take off a hat. At this point the others had caught up. Kagura and Sesshoumaru still kept their distance.

"Hi, Kikyo. I thought you were going home."

"I was. Am."

"Oh. Well, good luck."

"Can you tell us how much further to the village?" Sango asked.

"About another three miles. But there's not really anything there."

"We're going to see a priestess named Kagome."

"Really?" Shippo asked, shocked. "Why?"

"We're going to bring our parents back to life!" Inuyasha piped up from the ground. Kikyo got a bit pale.

"Is… that so?"

"Yes," Sango affirmed, nodding. "Kaede, another priestess, told us that by using a jewel Kagome has, we can kill our parents murderer in the past, and so they'll live."

"And, this jewel… you really need it, huh?"

"Yeah," Sesshoumaru said from the back. "Apparently nothing else can kill that guy."

"And this is a really touching reunion and all, but we have to go," Kagura told them all. "It's gonna be dark soon, and we have three more miles to go."

"Nice seeing you guys!" Inuyasha yelled back, waving even more, as the kids continued walking. Kikyo stood frozen, staring at the jewel in her hand.

"By the time they figured out you have it," Shippo whispered to her, "we can be long gone."

Kikyo still didn't take her eyes from the jewel. As she watched, dark strands wove their way through the light pink… only to disappear.

"It's their parents, Shippo. I can't take that away from them."

Shippo watched with a slight grin on his face as Kikyo ran after the retreating children. She said a few words, but he couldn't hear them. Then she pressed the jewel into Sango's hand. Sango looked from the young woman to the jewel and back. Then she did it again. Then, without warning, she pulled Kikyo into a hug. Her mouth was moving franticly. Shippo couldn't hear her, either, but he guessed she was saying something like 'thankyouthankyouthankyou!'

Kikyo disconnected from the girl, backing up. Shippo almost laughed. She was not cut out to deal with children. Very few people really were.

"So," He asked casually when she returned to him a minute later. "How'd it go?"

"Oh, shut up."

"So where to now?"

"Let's go back to the well. Maybe somehow it opened up again?"

"I doubt it."

* * *

"Let me see it! I wanna see! Come on, Sango, lemme see it!"

Sango obligingly lowered the glowing sphere to Inuyasha's height.

"And we're gonna use this to get our parents back?"

"Yeah. All we need to do is figure out how to purify what is basically a rock made of pure evil," Kagura said dryly.

"There's no such thing as pure evil," Miroku responded. "There is a little but of good in everything."

"Have you ever MET my dad?"

"In a sense," Miroku said, holding out his right hand.

Up ahead of them, the cave that housed Naraku's prison appeared. In the light of the setting sun, the opening looked black and foreboding, not so much like a mouth as a garbage disposal. Shivers went in unison down the backs of the five children.

"Do… do you think maybe we should wait for morning?" Inuyasha suggested.

"Aw, quit being a baby," Sesshoumaru rebuked him. He could see a lot better than the humans due to his demon blood. "There's nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light."

With those inspiring words, they made their way slowly into the cave. A light came off of the Shikon no tama, bathing the inside of the stone walls in a pale pink light. It bounced off the facets of the black crystal, which was glittering almost menacingly.

"So we just wish on it?" Sango asked.

"Not really," Miroku answered, thinking. "Kaede said we needed an incarnated innocence to basically exorcize it. Just breaking the stone would only release him."

"And then we're screwed," Kagura added.

"Quite."

"So that means…" All eyes turned to Inuyasha.

"I gotta do it?"

He was met with four solemn nods. Sango held out the jewel to him. As it touched his hand, it glowed brighter then it had. It was almost hard to look at in the gloom surrounding it.

"Bye," he said solemnly.

"That's right," Sango breathed.

"We won't remember each other."

Miroku and Sango looked at each other. Sesshoumaru and Kagura did the same.

"You'd still be alive in my time, right?" Sesshoumaru asked. "We might still get to meet."

Kagura shook her head slowly.

"No, we won't. Inside the crystal, Naraku still holds my heart. I'll be killed, too."

"What! Then… we won't do it! There's gotta be a way, you don't have to-"

"No, there isn't a way. Trust me, you aren't his only enemies. At least this way I'll die happy, knowing that bastard's going with me."

With something like horror, Sesshoumaru saw the look in Kagura's eyes. She was absolutely sure of what she wanted.

"Alright. Good luck in your next life."

"Yeah right. I'll probably end up as a slug or something…"

"Well, the good news is that slugs have a life span of about a month. So you won't be one very long."

He was being totally serious, but Kagura laughed anyway.

"Are you guys ready yet?" Inuyasha asked. He stood between his two friends, who each had a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Go for it," Sesshoumaru told him. "Little brother," he added, quietly.

Wrapping his hands around the glowing jewel, Inuyasha mouthed his wish. For a moment, nothing happened. Everyone peered curiously at the dormant jewel. Then it exploded into pure white light, effectively blinding all of them and leaving flickering after- images. Then it was gone, though nobody could tell in the almost blackness. A fierce wind blew outward from the crystal, carrying a sound like blowing leaves. A crack splintered through it, but it did not break. Some of the blackness began to dissipate from the center.

Inuyasha screamed, but it was cut off after only a few seconds.

"He's gone!" Sango exclaimed. She reached out in the dark for Miroku, but the moment their fingertips touched, they too disappeared.

Sesshoumaru almost fell backwards as Kagura crashed into him. He wrapped his arms around her, keeping her from falling. Her skin burned to the touch, but she kept her face impassive. Hiding pain was something she could do.

As the wind blew harder then ever, the sound of leaves reached a crescendo. It wasn't leaves at all, but people's voices. Sesshoumaru could hear his own, and Kagura's, having conversations that would never happen. Had never happened.

He felt her dissolve in his arms, and a second later, he, too, was gone. The wind died down and stopped altogether. The voices, too, stopped, if they had ever really spoken to begin with, leaving the cave empty, save for a crystal in the middle. The clear stone had a lattice of cracks running through it, red as the blood that would now never be spilled.

* * *

Epilogue

Sesshoumaru woke up with a strange sense of urgency, like there was something that really needed to be done. After a minute of desperate thinking, he marked it down to a dream, already forgotten.

As if sensing his brother's awakening, Inuyasha bounded into Sesshoumaru's room, jumping up onto the bed, where he proceeded to bounce annoyingly.

"Don't you ever knock?" Sesshoumaru grumbled, removing himself from the shaking bed.

"No," Inuyasha replied truthfully. The dog ears which had graced his head for almost a month twitched as he listened to his brother muted cursing.

"Breakfast is ready!" Izayoi called from the kitchen. Inuyasha bounded off in search of food. Pulling on a pair of jeans and a T- shirt, Sesshoumaru followed him.

His father was sitting at the head of the table, puzzling over the sudoku in the newspaper, and saying assuredly that they were impossible and no sane being could ever finish one. Izayoi, coming over with a pan of bacon in hand, pointed out the locations of at least three numbers.

For some reason, this average scene seemed a lot nicer than usual.

"Wow, the teenager smiles," Izayoi said, a smile on her own face as she pretended to take his temperature. "Should I check for pods?"

"Nah. It's probably just a phase."

"Aw, come on, Dad."

"I had the coolest dream ever," Inuyasha interrupted. Sesshoumaru tuned out as his little brother rambled on about wells and priestesses. Demons or no, that stuff didn't happen in real life.

* * *

"Did you know tonight's the first full moon since that demon scare last month?" Sango asked her parents.

"Let's just hope we don't get any monsters this time," Her father said, half- jokingly.

"Either way, you're staying home tonight, little taijiya," Her mother told her. "No buts."

"Aww, but"

"No buts."

"But. But but but." Sango giggled. "But but but."

"That's it," her mother replied, picking up the game. "You're grounded forever."

"But!"

"Well, if you want to go out, do it now."

"Okay, I will," Sango said with fake haughtiness. "I can see you don't love me."

Pretending to cry, she walked out the front door onto the sidewalk… just in time to almost get hit by a bike. Said bike swerved to avoid her, toppling it's rider onto the ground.

"Geez, I'm sorry," she said, helping the boy up. "I didn't even see you. That was totally my fault."

"Nah, don't worry about it," he said, looking up at her. "It wasn't your… have we met before? You look really familiar."

"Yeah… you too…"

* * *

Two thousand miles away, on an island known as Oahu, a flower bloomed. This particular flower was known as a hibiscus, a beautiful flower that died each night and bloomed again in the morning sun. The sun this morning rose high, bathing the blooming bud in warm rays of light. A warm breeze blew, and the flower rocked back and forth on its stalk. It looked a bit brighter, a bit more orange than the others… but it may have just been an illusion.

* * *

And, several miles away, and at least five hundred feet down, a pure white crab scuttled back and forth across gray sand. Not that either of these colors mattered. The frigid, crushing water above them blocked every ray of sunshine. Which was just as well. Not even the sun wanted to be that far down.

The end.

* * *

… wow, it's finally over. So, howdja like it? I had to really work to keep the ending from being tacky. I was gonna make Naraku into an evil kelp plant… but I didn't.

Any questions, comments, concerns, all welcome!


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